Title: Dairy shed wastewater treatment and modelling by anaerobic digestion technology

Authors: Ling Tie, Muttucumaru Sivakumar

Addresses: Sustainable Water and Energy Research Group (SWERG), School of Civil, Mining and Environmental Engineering, University of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. ' Sustainable Water and Energy Research Group (SWERG), School of Civil, Mining and Environmental Engineering, University of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia

Abstract: There is a growing interest in the application of Anaerobic Digestion (AD) technology to Australian dairy farms not only for the reduction of environmental pollution caused by the effluents but also for recovering bioenergy. To be able to design and operate efficient AD systems, appropriate mathematical models need to be developed to observe and analyse the anaerobic process dynamics, such as the Anaerobic Digestion Model No. 1 (ADM1) model developed by IWA Task Group. However, it has not been applied into various digester configurations to treat dairy shed wastewater originating from hydraulic flood systems that are used in typical Australian farms. In this paper, a critical review of AD technology in the context of Australian conditions and the application of ADM1 model has been described. Batch experiments were conducted to characterise the Australian dairy shed wastewater. New analytical methods for determination of Volatile Fatty Acids (VFAs) and total reducing sugar are further developed.

Keywords: dairy shed wastewater; anaerobic digestion; ADM1 modelling; wastewater treatment; Australia; dairy farms; environmental pollution; waste management; hydraulic flood systems.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEWM.2007.015686

International Journal of Environment and Waste Management, 2007 Vol.1 No.4, pp.321 - 337

Published online: 07 Nov 2007 *

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