The primary aim of the study was to develop and validate an in-house upscale of Automatic Methane Potential Test System II for studying real-time inocula and real-scale substrates in batch, codigestion and enzyme enhanced hydrolysis experiments, in addition to semi-continuous operation of the developed equipment and experiments testing inoculum functional quality. The successful upscale to 5L enabled comparison of different process configurations in shorter preparation times with acceptable accuracy and high-through put intended for industrial decision making. The adoption of the same scales, equipment and methodologies in batch and semi-continuous tests mirroring those at full scale biogas plants resulted in matching methane yields between the two laboratory tests and full-scale, confirming thus the increased decision making value of the approach for industrial operations.
Keywords: AMPTS; AMPTS II upscale; Anaerobic digestion; Batch; COD; FM; HRT; IWWS; MWWTP; Methane yield; OFMSW; OLR; SPMS; Semi-continuous; TIC; TKN; TS; VOA; VS; automatic methane potential test system; chemical oxygen demand; fresh matter; hydraulic retention time; industrial wastewater sludge; municipal waste water treatment plant; organic fraction of municipal solid wastes; organic loading rate; secondary paper mill sludge; total Kjeldahl nitrogen; total inorganic carbon; total solids; volatile organic acids; volatile solids.
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