The Single- and Two-Phase Anaerobic Digestion of Food Waste Effluent

The anaerobic digestion of food waste effluent through single- and two-phase process was estimated and compared in this study. The treatment efficiencies for total solid(TS), volatile solid(VS), tCOD(total COD) and sCOD(soluble COD) were invariably higher in the single-phase process, which was accounted for by the fact that the treatment efficiency of organic wastes usually showed an inverse relationship with organic loading rate in the anaerobic digestion. In fact, the organic loading rate was lower for single-phase process. The concentration of tCOD were significantly lower in two-phase process but much more biogas was produced, compared to single-phase anaerobic digestion process, which might be explained partly by the relatively higher stability of two-phase process resulting from the separation of acid phase from methane phase.