(604ab) Fuels and Chemicals from Wastes through Anaerobic Digestion

Digestion is a technology in which microorganisms are used to anaerobically degrade organic waste constituents into methane and carbon dioxide. The produced methane can then be fed into a genset for on-site production of electrical power and/or used to replace/displace natural gas as a fuel burned on-site. In this study, shrimp processing wastewater was used to produce methane in laboratory scale. The effect of initial pH and seed concentration (digester sludge) on biogas production were determined. The laboratory data were then used to predict the behavior of a pilot scale digester with respect to biogas production. Laboratory results also indicated that the process can be directed to production of bio-hydrogen and volatile fatty acids (VFAs) instead of methane and carbon dioxide. The VFAs were then utilized for production of lipid-rich microbial culture for biofuel applications.