A pilot plant two‐phase anaerobic digestion system for bioenergy recovery from swine wastes and garbage

A pilot plant bioenergy recovery system from swine waste and garbage was constructed. A series of experiments was performed using swine feces (SF); a mixture of swine feces and urine (MSFU); a mixture of swine feces, urine and garbage (MSFUG); garbage and a mixture of urine and garbage (AUG). The system performed well for treating the source materials at a high organic loading rate (OLR) and short hydraulic retention time (HRT). In particular, the biogas production for the MSFUG was the highest, accounting for approximately 865–930Lkg^‐1‐VS added at the OLR of 5.0–5.3kg‐VSm^‐3 day^‐1 and the HRT of 9 days. The removal of VS was 67–75%, and that of COD was 73–74%. Therefore, co‐digestion is a promising method for the recovery of bioenergy from swine waste and garbage. Furthermore, the results obtained from this study provide fundamental information for scaling up a high‐performance anaerobic system in the future.