Full-scale anaerobic co-digestion of dairy wastewater for renewable energy recovery in Morocco
摘要
The performance of an anaerobic co-digestion plant (working capacity of 4500 m3) treating dairy process waste and organic waste generated from dairy processing plants in the Fès-Meknès Region of Morocco was demonstrated through energy and environmental performance analysis. Eventually, COD removal was over 98% (inlet—9645 mg/L and outlet—133 mg/L). The average amount of biogas produced at the facility was 1370–1530 m3/day, which included a combination of 75.6% methane as determined by laboratory testing. Thermal energy recovery efficiency was > 94%. There were also less than 0.30% per year of thermal energy loss measured at the facility during the process. Methane production has been described accurately by the modified Gompertz equation (coefficient of determination (R2) > 0.98). In conclusion, these results and data support the premise that anaerobic co-digestion is a fully viable process and has the potential to provide environmentally sustainable benefits relating to the recovery of renewable energy from wastewater generated by agro-industrial processes.