Insights into organic loading rates of anaerobic digestion for biogas production: a review

Abstract

Anaerobic digestion (AD) for biogas production is affected by many factors that includes organic loading rate (OLR). This OLR appears to be closely linked to various other factors and understanding these linkages would therefore allow the sole use of OLR for process performance monitoring, control, as well as reactor design. This review’s objective is to collate the various AD factor specific studies, then relate these factors’ role in OLR fluctuations. By further analyzing the influence of OLR on the AD performance, it would then be possible, once all the other factors have been determined and fixed, to manage an AD plant by monitoring and controlling OLR only. Decisions on reactor design, process kinetics, biogas yield and process stability can then be made much more quickly and with minimal troubleshooting steps.

Keywords:

• Organic loading rate
• anaerobic digestion
• process stability and efficiency
• microbial communities
• biogas
• biodigester design
• anaerobic digestion factors

Acknowledgments

Opinions expressed and conclusions reached are those of the authors and not necessarily endorsed by the NRF and WRC.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work is based on the research supported by the National Research Foundation of South Africa [NRF; Grant Number 121924] and the Water Research Commission [WRC; Grant number K5/2543].