Analysis of the behavior for operation parameters in the anaerobic digestion process with thermal pretreatment, using fuzzy logic

Abstract

This article presents a study that identifies the variables with greatest impact on the biogas and methane production over a process with thermal pretreatment, to accelerate anaerobic digestion process in sewage sludge in a water treatment plant, for a poultry processing factory, by using fuzzy logic. The designed fuzzy logic model includes 688 inference rules, with a correlation of 99.3% between prediction data against experimental data, for the biogas variable; and 97% for the methane variable. The predictions of the fuzzy logic model were analyzed with response surface models, and it is concluded that the temperature and operating time variables are mutually determining in the biogas and methane production. Likewise, this research provides a methodology for the design of an expert decision support system that allows to evaluate and optimize a mesophilic anaerobic digestion process through a previous thermal treatment in order to improve the yields of biogas and methane in the treatment of effluent sludge from agroindustry. These results propose to diffuse logic as a reliable tool to make comparisons, and predictions for operation variables management on the treatment of residual sludge with thermal pretreatment on anaerobic digestion.

Keywords:

• Bioenergy
• anaerobic co-digestion
• fuzzy logic
• artificial intelligence

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the support via use of the infrastructure of the Environmental laboratories of the postgraduate of the Tecnológico Nacional de México/Instituto Tecnológico de Orizaba. Flores-Asis acknowledges a PhD scholarship from the Council of Science and Technology of Mexico (CONACyT) with number (CVU/grant holder): 231368.