Solid State Anaerobic Fermentation of Sorted Municipal Solid Waste under Thermophilic Condition

Abstract

This study investigate the Solid state anaerobic digestion of Municipal Solid waste from Chidambaram Municipality with high solid content (20%) by using Solid state Anaerobic fermenter under thermophilic condition (550c). This study describes the digestion of the reactor which was conducted over a period of 40 days in a batch process. The fresh organic fraction of municipal solid waste is feeded (which is equal to 80% of the total reactor volume) with 20% TS and it was mixed with 30% of two different inoculums such as cow dung and anaerobic sludge with mixing proportion of 2:1 ratio. During the start up phase, the reactor was run under mesophilic condition (370c) and then it was shifted to thermophilic condition (550c) by gradually increasing the temperature rate by 20c per day. During the stat up phase, the gas production was fluctuated initially and gradually increased from 9th Day to 19th Day and the highest gas production of 225 L/d and the methane composition of 66% were achieved at the 20th Day.