ADM1-based modeling of methane production from acidified sweet sorghum extract in a two stage process

The present study focused on the application of the Anaerobic Digestion Model 1 on the methane production from acidified sorghum extract generated from a hydrogen producing bioreactor in a two-stage anaerobic process. The kinetic parameters for hydrogen and volatile fatty acids consumption were estimated through fitting of the model equations to the data obtained from batch experiments.

The simulation of the continuous reactor performance at all HRTs tested (20, 15, and 10d) was very satisfactory. Specifically, the largest deviation of the theoretical predictions against the experimental data was 12% for the methane production rate at the HRT of 20d while the deviation values for the 15 and 10d HRT were 1.9% and 1.1%, respectively.

The model predictions regarding pH, methane percentage in the gas phase and COD removal were in very good agreement with the experimental data with a deviation less than 5% for all steady states. Therefore, the ADM1 is a valuable tool for process design in the case of a two-stage anaerobic process as well.