Vous êtes sur la page 1sur 7

Bioresource Technology 178 (2015) 278284

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Bioresource Technology
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/biortech

Development of an in-line process viscometer for the full-scale biogas


process
Matthias Mnch-Tegeder a,, Andreas Lemmer a, Jrg Hinrichs b, Hans Oechsner a
a
b

University of Hohenheim, State Institute of Agricultural Engineering and Bioenergy, Garbenstrae 9, 70 599 Stuttgart, Germany
University of Hohenheim, Dairy Science and Technology, Garbenstrae 21, 70 599 Stuttgart, Germany

h i g h l i g h t s
 Full-scale measurement of the rheological properties of biogas slurry.
 Feedstock and TS-content of the slurry have a large impact to the viscosity.
 Mechanical disintegration improves the ow behavior of biogas slurry.

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 10 June 2014
Received in revised form 7 August 2014
Accepted 9 August 2014
Available online 19 August 2014
Keywords:
Anaerobic digestion
Rheological properties
In-line viscometer
Full-scale biogas production

a b s t r a c t
An in-line viscometer was developed to determine the rheological properties of biogas slurries at a
full-scale biogas plant. This type of viscometer allows the investigation of ow characteristics without
additional pretreatment and has many advantageous aspects in contrast to the rotational viscometer.
Various effects were studied: alterations in the feedstock structure, increasing total solid (TS) of the slurry
and the disintegration of the feedstock on the rheological properties. The results indicate that the PowerLaw model is sufcient for the description of the ow curve of biogas slurries. Furthermore, the use of
more brous materials increases in viscosity. The increase in TS of 10.115.1% resulted in a sharp increase
of the viscosity. The mechanical disintegration of the feedstock positively inuenced the rheological
properties, but the effects were more apparent at higher TS.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Biogas is known to be a versatile resource with many advantageous aspects for a future, environmentally friendly energy supply.
The anaerobic conversion of organic materials like energy crops,
manure and waste can replace fossil fuels for heat and energy production and can be used, after proper upgrading, as vehicle fuel. A
major drawback is that the background for the design and dimensioning of agricultural biogas plants is mostly adapted from the
manure and wastewater treatment sector (Weiland, 2006). The
common digester design in agricultural biogas plants is the continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR). These techniques are widely used
for the anaerobic handling of liquid uids with a low ber content.
The modications for the digestion of crop materials are generally
based on the empirical knowledge of the constructing engineer and
on experiences with existing biogas plants. Formal research to
Corresponding author. Tel.: +49 711 459 22685; fax: +49 711 459 22111.
E-mail address: Matthias.Moench-Tegeder@uni-hohenheim.de (M. MnchTegeder).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biortech.2014.08.041
0960-8524/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

improve these techniques has not been conducted, because it is


too time-consuming for this agile market (Lindorfer et al., 2008).
However, the increasing utilization of arable land for biogas production raises ethical questions about using agricultural products
as food or fuel. Therefore, industry professionals have increased
interest in the use of residuals and wastes as input substrates,
which have higher solid and ber contents than plant feedstock
(Menardo and Balsari, 2012). In general, the digestion of this kind
of feedstock in agricultural biogas plants is crucial (Kusch et al.,
2011) and will result in procedural problems in the digestion
system (Hashimoto, 1983). Mixing is necessary for the uniform
distribution of solids and fresh materials, enables contact to the
microorganisms and is mandatory to ensure constant processing
temperature in the reactor. Additionally, an appropriate mixing
prevents the formation of oating layers, supercial incrustations
or the sedimentation of small particles. It is also essential for the
disposal of biogas from the slurry and thereby avoids the swelling
of the digester content (Brehmer et al., 2012; Ward et al., 2008;
Wu, 2010). To agitate the digester content several systems are
available: external pumped recirculation, internal gas mixing and

M. Mnch-Tegeder et al. / Bioresource Technology 178 (2015) 278284

mechanical mixing systems. The latter is most commonly applied


in agricultural biogas plants (Appels et al., 2008; Weiland, 2010).
A previous study showed that agitation consumes the highest
amount of energy in common biogas plants (Naegele et al., 2012)
but by adjusting the mixing intensity, the energy demand can be
reduced up to 70% without a loss in mixing quality (Lemmer
et al., 2013). Therefore, the prediction of the optimum mixing
intensity for a stable biogas process is essential for further development and improvement of the digestion technology. According to
ONeil (1985) and Vesvikar et al. (2005), rheological properties
are crucial for an optimal design, control and operation of biogas
plants. The rheological properties of manure and sludge from
wastewater treatment are well known, but only very little data
on the rheological properties of biogas slurry are available
(Baudez et al., 2011).
For simplication, biogas slurry can be classied as a
water-based suspension containing particles, brous materials,
microorganisms and gas bubbles showing a shear-thinning nonNewtonian ow behavior. This means that the viscosity of the
slurry decreases with increasing shear rate (Baroutian et al.,
2013). Furthermore, it was found by Nges et al. (2012) that the viscosity of the biogas slurry is time dependent, with the tendency to
built-up network structures once no shear stress occurs. The rheological properties of the slurry mainly depend on temperature,
total solid (TS) content, particle size and shape, and dispersed gas
bubbles.
To determine the rheological properties via the apparent viscosity, rotational and tubular viscometers are described in the literature (Ratkovich et al., 2013). Both systems have advantages and
disadvantages for the rheological characterization of uids. The
advantages of the rotational viscometers are its simple handling,
as well as its widely spread and highly reproducible measurements
with small sample sizes. However, the measuring gap is very small
and unsuitable for substrates with larger particles or it requires an
additional pretreatment step such as sieving. On the contrary, with
reference to tubular viscometers, the determination of the pressure
drop in a tube with a dened length offers a simple and robust
method for viscosity measurements and can be easily implemented. Based on the design of the tube viscometer, no further
particle size reduction is required and a large and representative
sample volume can be analyzed. Its integration into the process
prevents degradation or changes in substrate structure during
the transportation of the sample to the measurement device in
the laboratory (Dieud-Fauvel et al., 2014). Furthermore, the tube
viscometer is a versatile and reliable instrument to analyze the
rheological properties in research and industrial processes
(Eshtiaghi et al., 2013). There is a general consensus that the
knowledge of the rheological behavior and properties is an essential part of the process optimization, but little data are available.
Therefore, the aim of this work was to develop an inline tube
viscometer for the monitoring of the rheological properties at the
research biogas plant of the University of Hohenheim. The effects
of changes in the feedstock composition, varying TS-contents of
the digester slurries and the mechanical pretreatment of the feedstock were investigated.

2. Methods
The biogas plant of the University of Hohenheim is located at
the agricultural research station Unterer Lindenhof near Reutlingen, Germany and was designed and built for full-scale studies and
for the up-scaling of laboratory expertise (Fig. 1). The plant consists
of two main digesters and one secondary digester. Each digester
has a diameter of 14 m and a height of 6 m and is operated as CSTR
with a working volume of 800 m3. The process temperature is set

279

to 40.5 C. The main digesters are equipped with a concrete roof


and the second digester is set up with a foil ination dome for
the gas storage. For the agitation of the slurries, a submersible
motor mixer (Type 4670, ITT Flygt AB, Sweden) is installed in each
digester. Because it is fed with fresh substrate, which has a higher
mixing demand, digester 1 is equipped with one inclined shaft propeller mixer (Type Biogator HPR I, REMA, Germany) while digester
2 has a paddle inclined agitator (Type Biobull, Envicon, Germany).
For solid substrate feeding every main digester has its own feeding
system, consisting of a vertical mixer and feeding screws. For the
additional pretreatment of the solid feedstock, a cross-ow grinder
(Type Bio-QZ, MeWa, Germany) was installed between the vertical
mixer and digester 1. To process of liquid manure and the slurries,
a central pump station with a frequency-controlled eccentric screw
pump (Type KL65 S, Wangen, Germany) was installed. The central
pump station is equipped with a distribution manifold at the pressure and suction side. The outgoing pipes from the pressure side
with a dimension of DN 150 open into the digester near the solid
input at a height of 4 m. To avoid short circuits, the outgoing section of the DN 200 suction pipes is located on the opposite side of
the reactor at a height of 0.35 m. The delivery rate of the liquid
substrates is measured with an electromagnetic ow measuring
system (Type Promag 50 W, Endress+Hauser, Suisse).
A pipe viscometer was developed to determine the rheological
properties of the reactor slurries without time-dependent changes
or further pretreatment (Fig. 2). This principle is based on the measurement of the pressure drop at a dened ow rate along a
dened tube length. The pipe viscometer at the research biogas
plant is located in an additional circuit directly behind the central
pump and ow meter. The pipe viscometer consists of two difference pressure sections with a diameter of DN 100 and DN 80. The
different tube diameters allow measurements in a shear rate range
from 5 to 220 1/s by varying the ow rate of the eccentric screw
pump. The length of the DN 80 section is 3.9 m and the DN 100 section is 4.1 m. At the beginning and end of the measurement sections, a diaphragm in-line seal (TYPE 981.10, WIKA, Germany)
was integrated. For each measurement section, the diaphragm
seals were connected to a differential pressure transmitter (Type
DPT-10, WIKA, Germany). To avoid misinterpretations or temperature effects to the measurements, the substrate temperature at the
rear part of the viscometer was determined. All data were collected
and saved in the system control unit.
To determine the rheological properties it was necessary to calculate the apparent viscosity (gapp) in [Pa s], the apparent shear
stress (sapp) in [Pa] and the apparent shear rate (c_ app ) in [1/s] from
the measurement data. The calculations were done according to
Adhikari and Jindal (2001) and Slatter (1997) and are based on
the following equations:

c_ app

sapp

V_
r

p  Dp  r
8L

Combining both leads to the apparent viscosity,

s
p  Dp  r 4
gapp _ app
capp
8  L  V_

where V_ is the volumetric ow [m3/s], r the inner radius of the pipe


[m], Dp the difference pressure [Pa] and L the length of the section
[m].
The modeling of the ow curves were conducted with the
power law model according to Ostwald-de Waele:

gapp k  y_ n1

280

M. Mnch-Tegeder et al. / Bioresource Technology 178 (2015) 278284

Fig. 1. Flow scheme of the research biogas plant Unterer Lindenhof (Naegele et al., 2012).

Fig. 2. In-line tube viscometer of the research biogas plant Unterer Lindenhof.

where k describes the consistency factor and n the ow behavior


index.
In addition to the rheological measurements, the content of TS
and VS (volatile solids) of the investigated slurry was analyzed
according to the guidelines of the VDI 4630 (VDI-Society Energy
and Environment, 2006).
With the intent of identifying the factors that affect the rheological properties of the slurry in the full-scale biogas process, the
investigation in this research was divided into three independent
experiments.
In the rst part, the effects of alterations in the feedstock mixture were analyzed over a period of 8 weeks. During this time,
the average amount of daily input in digester 1 was 8.4 2.0 t fresh
matter and resulted in an organic loading rate of 2.5 0.3 kg VS/

m3 * d. The average composition of the substrate mixture for each


week is shown in Fig. 3. The livestock production residues were the
main substrate source for the biogas production at the research
station. Liquid and solid manure dominates the input substrate,
with a share of more than 60% of the substrate mixture. The variation of the liquid manure in the feeding ration is remarkable,
due to the fact that the surface water of the outlets from the stables
were collected in the manure storage and periods with higher precipitation require an adjustment to the feeding. In this trial, the
amount of grass silage in the mixture was reduced in week 3 and
replaced by maize silage. In weeks 4 and 5, no grass silage was
used for the feeding of digester 1. After 3 weeks, the portion of
maize silage was reduced and in week 6, the grass and maize silage
were fed in equal shares. In the last 2 weeks of this section of the

281

M. Mnch-Tegeder et al. / Bioresource Technology 178 (2015) 278284

(El-Mashad et al., 2005; Tian et al., 2013) and is reected by the


high coefcient of determination (R2). Due to the constant process
temperature in the digesters at the biogas plant, the inuence of
temperature on the ow properties of the slurry was negligible
and was not investigated in this work. A clear inuence was
observed on the rheological properties due to the variations in
the input mixture.
The reduction of the brous grass silage in week 2 altered the
rheological properties and resulted in a decrease of the consistency
factor k (Table 1). The parameter n, which describes the sensitivity
of the viscosity to the rate of shear (Agote et al., 2001) increased
during this period. This means that the shear-dependent viscosity
was reduced and is clearly demonstrated by the decrease in viscosity at different shear rates. Due to the shear-thinning behavior of
the slurries, the decrease in viscosity at higher shear rates is
negligible. The shift back to the feeding of grass silage in week 6
resulted in a worsening of the rheological properties and therefore
increases the viscosity of the slurry. Conforming to Viamajala et al.
(2009) the chemical and physical characteristics of the feedstock
proved to have a large impact on the rheological properties.
Especially brous materials with large particle sizes can affect
the rheological properties in biogas slurries (Landry et al., 2004).
Therefore, for the planning and dimensioning of the agitation technology, the consideration of the feedstock is mandatory. A shift in
input substrates with higher structural features in dependence of
the availability and price can cause strong variations in the viscosity and leads to procedural problems and break downs.

Feeding composition [%]

100
80
Crushed grain
Grass silage
Maize silage
Liquid manure
Solid manure

60
40
20
0
1

7
Week

Fig. 3. Average weekly composition of the daily feedstock of digester 1 during the
rst section of this study.

study, the amount of grass silage was set to 25% and the maize
silage reduced by up to 10% in the feeding ratio.
In the second part of this work, we focused on the inuence of
the TS-content of the biogas slurry on the rheological properties.
An increase of the TS-content of the slurry was achieved by altering
the substrate mixture of the daily input. Therefore, the amount of
solid manure in the mixture was set to 50%, and the remaining
parts of the mixture were 30% liquid manure and 20% maize silage.
The amount of the daily input and the organic loading rate were
not varied.
In the third part of the study, the effect of the additional substrate pretreatment step on the rheological properties was studied.
The feeding of the digesters was set to an equal substrate mixture
with 25% liquid manure, 35% solid manure, 10% maize silage, 25%
grass silage and 5% crushed grain with the identical amount of
daily input as in the previous parts of the study.

3.2. Inuence of TS-content


The impact of slurry TS-content on the rheological parameters
for waste water sludge and manure is well known (Chen, 1986;
Ratkovich et al., 2013). But due to the high ber content and larger
particle size in biogas slurry, and thus the lack of a functional
measurement method, there is insufcient knowledge about the
inuence of increasing TS on the viscosity of biogas slurries. Since
the density of anaerobic digestion sludge has no inuence on the
rheological behavior; the TS-content is the most important parameter for substrate characterization. Additionally, variations in the
TS-content has only a slight effect on the density of the slurry
(Tian et al., 2013) because the solved gas in the slurry has the highest effects on the density. Changes in the TS-content, the particle
size or structure shows no strong correlation to the density of biogas slurry. Therefore, the density is not an appropriate parameter
for the description of the ow characteristics of biogas slurry. In
general, the solid content of the slurry is directly related to the surface-associated particle interactions and the limited availability of

3. Results and discussion


3.1. Effects of alterations in the feedstock mixture
The experiments were conducted over a time span of 8 weeks at
digester 1. This period reects a regular operation mode at agricultural biogas plants with a seasonal availability of different input
substrates. The specic methane production during this time was
0.304 0.040 m3 CH4/kg VSadded. An overview of the determined
ow curves are presented in Fig. 4. As expected, the biogas slurry
shows a shear-thinning non-Newtonian uid behavior. A thixotropic uid behavior of the slurries, which was observed by Nges et al.
(2012), could not be proven with this experimental setup. According to further results, the Power-Law model is sufcient for tting
the ow curve of waste water sludge, manure and biogas slurries

Apparent viscosity [Pa s]

Week 1
Week 2
Week 4
Week 6
Week 8

4
3
2
1
0
20

40

60

Apparent shear rate [1/s]


Fig. 4. Flow-curves of the biogas slurry of digester 1 during the feeding variations.

80

282

M. Mnch-Tegeder et al. / Bioresource Technology 178 (2015) 278284


Table 1
Variations in apparent viscosity at different shear rates and the parameters of the Power-Law model during the feeding variations in digester 1.
App. shear rate [1/s]

10
30
50
100
k
n
R2

App. viscosity [Pa s]


Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

Week 6

Week 7

2.61
1.11
0.74
0.43

2.15
0.92
0.62
0.36

1.96
0.88
0.61
0.37

1.78
0.78
0.53
0.32

1.56
0.72
0.50
0.30

1.60
0.74
0.52
0.32

1.71
0.79
0.55
0.34

1.98
0.91
0.64
0.39

15.74
0.22
0.95

12.72
0.23
0.94

10.54
0.27
0.95

10.01
0.25
0.93

8.00
0.29
0.94

7.93
0.30
0.96

8.59
0.30
0.96

10.02
0.30
0.95

free water for minimizing the particle interactions. An overview of


the obtained results is given in Table 2. At the beginning of this section, the TS-content of the slurry was 10.1%. Due to the changes in
the substrate mixture, the TS-content increases. Simultaneously,
an increase in viscosity was observed, although the increase in viscosity was clearly higher at lower shear rates (Fig. 5). Due to the
shear-thinning uid behavior of the slurries, was the increase in
viscosity at a shear rate of 100/s clearly lower than at 5/s, 10/s 0r
30/s. A TS-content above 13.0% in digester 1 resulted in a visible
reduction of the stirring effects. As a result, it was necessary to
increase the mixing intensity. The intermittent mixing (15 min
working mode, 15 min break) was changed to continuous mixing.
Due to the further increase of the TS-content, the slurry movement
in the reactor decreased. Furthermore, the formation of caverns
around the submersible motor mixer was observed. Nevertheless,
no process failures such as substrate blowing, swimming layers
or a reduction in gas production required the termination of the
trial. Therefore, it seems that the smaller particle sizes, as a result
of the mechanical disintegration of the feedstock, leads to an
improvement of the ow behavior. The differences between the
ow curves of the slurry with 14.7% TS and 15.1% TS was less
obvious than expected and it appears that the increase in viscosity
reached a plateau. According to the results of Viamajala et al.
(2009) the frictional forces at high solid concentrations are
constant and the apparent viscosity does not change signicantly.
Furthermore, such high solid concentrations in slurries are critical.
The clear reduction of the uidity at these high TS-contents shows
the limiting viscosity of the slurry in our experiment. A further
increase in viscosity would have resulted in a loss of pumpability
of the slurry. An effect of the increasing TS-content of the slurry
on the gas production was not observed. In this section of
the study, the specic methane production was 0.309
0.012 m3 CH4/kg VSadded and comparable to the gas production of
the rst part of the study.
3.3. Consequences of the mechanical disintegration
The optimization of existing biogas plants is a common practice
to increase the economical output. The main trends that can be
observed are the increase of the gas production due to increases
Table 2
Variations of the consistency factor (k) and the ow behavior index (n) due to an
increase in TS-content.
TS [%]

R2

10.1
10.7
11.2
11.7
12.7
13.3
14.7
15.1

8.00
8.59
10.02
16.73
17.03
23.63
37.96
41.92

0.29
0.30
0.30
0.21
0.26
0.24
0.23
0.23

0.94
0.96
0.95
0.94
0.97
0.96
0.97
0.97

Week 8

of the loading rate in the existing reactor volume and the use of
low-cost lignocellusosic substrates. Overall, these actions cause
changes in the ow properties of the slurry and necessitate
technical adaptations of the agitation technology. The alterations
of the feeding can provoke a completely different particle structure
and network in the slurry and should be taken into account for a
stable plant operation (Brambilla et al., 2013; Landry et al.,
2004). Techniques for substrate disintegration were adapted to
lower the particle size and structure and thereby reduce the viscosity of the slurry. In contrast to other uids like coalwater systems,
where the particle size reduction leads to an increase of surfaceassociated interactions with a negative impact on rheological properties, the pretreatment of biomass slurries more favorably affects
the rheological properties than untreated slurries (Roh et al., 1995).
However, there is still insufcient literature on the effects of the
disintegration on the rheological behavior in the full-scale biogas
process. Hence, the aim of this section is to determine the effects
of the mechanical treatment on the ow properties at the research
biogas plant. The investigation took place over a period of 5 weeks.
The initial TS-content of the slurries was 9.8% in both digesters. The
rst 2 weeks were used for the adaption of the digesters. Then the
viscosities of the slurries were determined in the three following
weeks. The TS-content of the slurries was identical between both
digesters during this period. However, due to the high solid content in the feedstock the TS-content increased over time. This
allowed the investigation of the effects of the treatment in a range
of 10.1 to 11.7 % TS (Table 3). The results indicate that the treatment of the input substrates lead to a higher consistency factor
in digester 1 than the untreated substrates in digester 2. Furthermore, the increase in TS-content resulted in an almost doubling
of the consistency factor in both reactors. Regarding the ow
behavior index, a considerably lower ow behavior index was
determined for the treated slurry. This means that despite the
higher consistency index, the slurry of digester 1 is more sensitive
to the shear rate. This factor is a crucial point for practical application, because the viscosity of the slurry will be rebuilt without continuous mixing (Nges et al., 2012) and the higher sensitivity to
shear rate results in a more distinct shear-thinning behavior of
the slurry. Fig. 6 shows the percentage differences in apparent viscosity of the slurries of the reactors at four different shear rates.
The results suggest that the particle size reduction leads to a lower
viscosity over the whole shear range. Additionally, the differences
increase between the slurries at higher shear rates. This increase in
TS-content leads to larger differences in the viscosity. In this investigation, the viscosity of the slurry in digester 1 was always lower
than in digester 2. The differences varied in a range of 5.852.5%
and underline the large impact of the particle size on the viscosity.
This is in agreement with Tian et al. (2014), who observed increasing effects of the smaller particles sizes with higher TS. At TS lower
than 4.0%, no effects of particle size reduction were detected
(Viamajala et al., 2009). In conclusion, the rheological patterns
were more affected by the particle size with increasing TS. Therefore, the particle size reduction by mechanical disintegration is an

283

M. Mnch-Tegeder et al. / Bioresource Technology 178 (2015) 278284

14

Shear rate 5/s


Shear rate 10/s
Shear rate 30/s
Shear rate 100/s

Apparent viscosity [Pa s]

12
10
8
6
4
2
0
10

11

12

13

14

15

TS [%]
Fig. 5. Inuence of the TS-content of biogas slurry at different shear rates on the ow-behavior of digester 1.

Table 3
Comparison of the apparent viscosity and the parameters of the Power-Law model of the disintegrated slurry of digester 1 and the untreated slurry of digester 2.
App. shear rate [1/s]

App. viscosity [Pa s]


TS 10.1%

TS 11.2%
Digester 2

10
30
50
100

1.56
0.72
0.50
0.30

1.66
0.81
0.58
0.37

1.98
0.91
0.64
0.39

2.09
1.08
0.80
0.53

2.68
1.12
0.75
0.43

2.97
1.45
1.03
0.66

k
n
R2

8.00
0.29
0.94

7.53
0.34
0.94

10.02
0.30
0.95

8.31
0.40
0.92

16.73
0.21
0.97

13.49
0.34
0.93

38.5
34.9

Digester 1

Digester 2

on the viscosity and underline the necessity of full-scale research


as a helpful supplement for process optimization. There is need
of further research to gain data about the rheological behavior in
order to lower the process failure rate.

25.4

20
10

Digester 2

29.1

30

40

50

52.5
TS 10.1 %
TS 11.2 %
TS 11.7 %

18.8
10.9

12.8

20.3

Acknowledgements

16.0

6.4 5.8

Difference in apparent viscosity [%]

Digester 1

TS 11.7%

Digester 1

10

30
50
Apparent shear rate [1/s]

100

Fig. 6. Comparison of the apparent viscosity of the slurry, at different TS-contents,


from digester 1 (with disintegration) and 2 (without pretreatment) at different
apparent shear rates.

appropriate tool for reducing the viscosity of the biogas slurries


and increasing the operation safety. According to the results of
Mnch-Tegeder et al. (2014), the mechanical disintegration leads
to a signicantly higher degradation of brous materials. Despite
the same feeding in both digesters, the specic methane production in digester 2 (0.232 0.067 m3 CH4/kg VSadded) was 23% lower
than in digester 1 (0.303 0.048 m3 CH4/kg VSadded) in this trial.
4. Conclusion
The results of this work demonstrate the feasibility of the
implemented full-scale viscometer. Moreover, this tool allows the
determination of rheological properties of biogas slurry without
further treatment, which dramatically affects the ow pattern
and provides unreliable data for the full-scale process simulation.
The investigations in this study show the large impact of the feeding substrates, the TS-content and the mechanical disintegration

This research was funded by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) as part of
the project Horse manure further development of technologies
for the efcient use of horse manure, FKZ 03KB064.

References
Adhikari, B., Jindal, V.K., 2001. Fluid ow characterization with tube viscometer
data. J. Food Eng. 50 (4), 229234.
Agote, I., Odriozola, A., Gutierrez, M., Santamara, A., Quintanilla, J., Coupelle, P.,
Soares, J., 2001. Rheological study of waste porcelain feedstocks for injection
moulding. J. Eur. Ceram. Soc. 21 (16), 28432853.
Appels, L., Baeyens, J., Degrve, J., Dewil, R., 2008. Principles and potential of the
anaerobic digestion of waste-activated sludge. Prog. Energy Combust. Sci. 34
(6), 755781.
Baroutian, S., Eshtiaghi, N., Gapes, D.J., 2013. Rheology of a primary and secondary
sewage sludge mixture: dependency on temperature and solid concentration.
Bioresour. Technol. 140, 227233.
Baudez, J.C., Markis, F., Eshtiaghi, N., Slatter, P., 2011. The rheological behaviour of
anaerobic digested sludge. Water Res. 45 (17), 56755680.
Brambilla, M., Romano, E., Cutini, M., Pari, L., Bisaglia, C., 2013. Rheological
properties of manure/biomass mixtures and pumping strategies to improve
ingestate formulation: a review. Trans. ASABE 56 (5), 19051920.
Brehmer, M., Eppinger, T., Kraume, M., 2012. Inuence of rheology on the ow
pattern in stirred biogas plants. Chem. Ing. Tech. 84 (11), 20482056.
Chen, Y.R., 1986. Laminar tube ow of sieved beef-cattle manure slurries. Agric.
Wastes 15 (1), 3549.
Dieud-Fauvel, E., Hritier, P., Chanet, M., Girault, R., Pastorelli, D., Guibelin, E.,
Baudez, J.C., 2014. Modelling the rheological properties of sludge during
anaerobic digestion in a batch reactor by using electrical measurements. Water
Res. 51, 104112.

284

M. Mnch-Tegeder et al. / Bioresource Technology 178 (2015) 278284

El-Mashad, H.M., van Loon, W.K.P., Zeeman, G., Bot, G.P.A., 2005. Rheological
properties of dairy cattle manure. Bioresour. Technol. 96 (5), 531535.
Eshtiaghi, N., Markis, F., Yap, S.D., Baudez, J.-C., Slatter, P., 2013. Rheological
characterisation of municipal sludge: a review. Water Res. 47 (15), 54935510.
Hashimoto, A.G., 1983. Conversion of strawmanure mixtures to methane at
mesophilic and thermophilic temperatures. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 25 (1), 185
200.
Kusch, S., Schumacher, B., Oechsner, H., Schfer, W., 2011. Methane yield of oat
husks. Biomass Bioenergy 35 (7), 26272633.
Landry, H., Lagu, C., Roberge, M., 2004. Physical and rheological properties of
manure products. Appl. Eng. Agric. 20 (3), 277288.
Lemmer, A., Naegele, H.J., Sondermann, J., 2013. How efcient are agitators in biogas
digesters? Determination of the efciency of submersible motor mixers and
incline agitators by measuring nutrient distribution in full-scale agricultural
biogas digesters. Energies 6 (12), 62556273.
Lindorfer, H., Corcoba, A., Vasilieva, V., Braun, R., Kirchmayr, R., 2008. Doubling the
organic loading rate in the co-digestion of energy crops and manure a full
scale case study. Bioresour. Technol. 99 (5), 11481156.
Menardo, S., Balsari, P., 2012. An analysis of the energy potential of anaerobic
digestion of agricultural by-products and organic waste. Bioenergy Res. 5 (3),
759767.
Mnch-Tegeder, M., Lemmer, A., Oechsner, H., 2014. Enhancement of methane
production with horse manure supplement and pretreatment in a full-scale
biogas process. Energy, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2014.06.051.
Naegele, H.-J., Lemmer, A., Oechsner, H., Jungbluth, T., 2012. Electric energy
consumption of the full scale research biogas plant Unterer Lindenhof: results
of longterm and full detail measurements. Energies 5 (12), 51985214.
Nges, I.A., Bjrn, A., Bjrnsson, L., 2012. Stable operation during pilot-scale
anaerobic digestion of nutrient-supplemented maize/sugar beet silage.
Bioresour. Technol. 118, 445454.
ONeil, D.J., 1985. Rheology and mass/heat transfer aspects of anaerobic reactor
design. Biomass 8 (3), 205216.

Ratkovich, N., Horn, W., Helmus, F.P., Rosenberger, S., Naessens, W., Nopens, I.,
Bentzen, T.R., 2013. Activated sludge rheology: a critical review on data
collection and modelling. Water Res. 47 (2), 463482.
Roh, N.-S., Shin, D.-H., Kim, D.-C., Kim, J.-D., 1995. Rheological behaviour of coal
water mixtures. 1. Effects of coal type, loading and particle size. Fuel 74 (8),
12201225.
Slatter, P.T., 1997. The rheological characterisation of sludges. Water Sci. Technol.
36 (11), 918.
Tian, Z., Chauliac, D., Pullammanappallil, P., 2013. Comparison of non-agitated and
agitated batch, thermophilic anaerobic digestion of sugarbeet tailings.
Bioresour. Technol. 129, 411420.
Tian, L., Shen, F., Yuan, H., Zou, D., Liu, Y., Zhu, B., Li, X., 2014. Reducing agitation
energy-consumption by improving rheological properties of corn stover
substrate in anaerobic digestion. Bioresour. Technol., http://dx.doi.org/
10.1016/j.biortech.2014.03.023.
VDI-Society Energy and Environment, 2006. VDI 4630: Fermentation of organic
Materials Characterization of the Substrate, Sampling, Collection of Material
Data, Fermentation Tests.
Vesvikar, M.S., Varma, R., Karim, K., Al-Dahhan, M., 2005. Flow pattern visualization
in a mimic anaerobic digester: experimental and computational studies. Water
Sci. Technol. 52, 537543.
Viamajala, S., McMillan, J.D., Schell, D.J., Elander, R.T., 2009. Rheology of corn stover
slurries at high solids concentrations effects of saccharication and particle
size. Bioresour. Technol. 100 (2), 925934.
Ward, A.J., Hobbs, P.J., Holliman, P.J., Jones, D.L., 2008. Optimisation of the anaerobic
digestion of agricultural resources. Bioresour. Technol. 99 (17), 79287940.
Weiland, P., 2006. Biomass digestion in agriculture: a successful pathway for the
energy production and waste treatment in Germany. Eng. Life Sci. 6 (3), 302309.
Weiland, P., 2010. Biogas production: current state and perspectives. Appl.
Microbiol. Biotechnol. 85 (4), 849860.
Wu, B., 2010. CFD prediction of mixing time in anaerobic digesters. Trans. ASABE 53
(2), 553563.

Vous aimerez peut-être aussi