Funding: Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL)

Status: current

Cooperations:

Technische Universität Berlin

Dresdner Grundwasserforschungszentrum e.V.

EnviTec Anlagenbau GmbH

The mechanisms of process stabilization due to additives will be investigated in anaerobic treatment of renewable resources and residues. A deeper process understanding will be the basis for the development of universal indicators to predict process failures and to improve countermeasures as well as to control the process. The further development of control designs will support the flexibility in the selection of substrates and their combinations. Thus, biogas plants will perform stable and efficient, even though there is a high time variance in terms of the feed rate and substrate composition.   Basic investigations of the interactions between the process control, the introduction of additives as well as the effect of inhibitors and the variability of the microbial community will be accomplished in order to derive recommendations for a stable and efficient process performance. The introduction of additives will be regulated by the early warning indicators and furthermore, the process will be stabilized by an improved mixing technique. The early warning indicators will allow for an increase in the feed rate of the reactor as well as in the degradation efficiency. Hereby, the process stabilizing effect of granules for a fast increase in process performance will be utilized to produce energy on demand. In addition, the mechanism and the significance of the granule formation in the stabilization of the process will be investigated.