Effect of magneto-active filling on the effectiveness of methane fermentation of dairy wastewaters

Abstract

The goal of this study was to determine the effectiveness of methane fermentation in dairy wastewaters in terms of the volume and qualitative composition of biogas produced in an anaerobic reactor with magneto-active filling (MAF) mounted in the zone of hydrolysis and acidogenesis. Experiments were conducted on the fractional-technical scale in a vertical fermentation reactor with a labyrinth flow. Synthetic dairy wastewaters prepared based on milk powder were used as a substrate. The analyzed filling was made of plastic covered with iron and copper powders and was additionally equipped with fluid magnetizers (FM) in the form of neodymium magnets. The study demonstrated that MAF incorporation into the technological system significantly improved the effectiveness of biogas production, increased methane concentration and lowered the content of hydrogen sulfide in gaseous metabolites of fermentative bacteria. A significant increase was also observed in the effectiveness of COD removal from dairy wastewaters. The reported experiments proved a correlation between the effectiveness of methane fermentation and the number of MAF elements introduced into the anaerobic reactor.