Affiliations 

  • 1 Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
Appl Microbiol Biotechnol, 2015 May;99(10):4509-20.
PMID: 25761621 DOI: 10.1007/s00253-015-6486-4

Abstract

Foaming problem which occurred occasionally during food waste (FW) anaerobic digestion (AD) was investigated with the Malaysian FW by stepwise increase in organic loading (OL) from 0.5 to 7.5 g VS/L. The FW feedstock with carbon to nitrogen (C/N) ratio of 17 was upgraded to C/N ratio of 26 and 30 by mixing with other wastes. The digestion which was carried out at 37 °C in 1-L batch reactors showed that foam formation initiated at OL of 1.5 g VS/L and was further enhanced as OL of feedstock was increased. The digestion foaming reached its maximum at OL of 5.5 g VS/L and did not increase further even when OL was increased to 7.5 g VS/Ld. Increase in the C/N ratio of feedstock significantly enhanced the microbial degradation activity, leading to better removal of foam causing intermediates and reduced foaming in the reactor by up to 60%.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.