1 Complete Mix

A complete mix digester is an enclosed, heated tank with a mechanical, hydraulic or gas mixing
system. Complete mix digesters work best when there is some dilution of the excreted manure
with water (e.g., milking centre wastewater) and manure handled as slurry. The contents of the
digester are mixed by motor or pump.

2 Covered Lagoon
Covered lagoon systems have two cells, both of which are needed for efficient operation. This
type of AD system, consisting of a lagoon that captures biogas under an impermeable cover,
has low maintenance requirements. The first cell of a two-cell lagoon is covered, and the second
cell is usually uncovered. The level of wastewater in the first cell remains constant to promote
manure breakdown, while the liquid level in the second cell may vary.

3 Plug Flow
For a plug flow system, manure flowing into the digester displaces digester volume; an equal
amount of material flows out, and the contents are thick enough to keep particles from settling
to the bottom. The manure moves through the digester as a plug, hence the name “plug flow."
For most plug flow digesters, the total solids content of manure should be at least 10 to 20
percent, so extra biodegradable matter may need to be added. Plug flow digesters are usually
five times longer than they are wide and the recommended retention time for their contents is
15 to 20 days

4 Small Fixed Dome

Small fixed dome digesters consist of an inlet trough, a lower fermenting reservoir with a rigid,
immovable collection dome capping it, and some type of overflow relief. Several different
types of fixed dome digesters exist, but the most popular is the Chinese design, which is
typically built of gas-sealed brick and mortar or cement. The simple design of a fixed dome
digester and its lack of moving parts means that if constructed well, it will last for many years.
Most small fixed dome digesters are constructed underground, which means that they are hard
to access for cleaning and maintenance. Since methane gas inside the collection chamber is
being pushed out only by the pressure of other methane, the gas pressure coming out of the
collector is subject to large fluctuations. Therefore, in order to use the biogas for cooking or
other applications, a regulating device is commonly added.

5 Waasa
A vertical digester, internally separated for the predigestion of the input material, is used in
order to digest waste with 10–15% VS-content. Both temperature phases may be used, a biogas
production of 100–150 m3/Mg (input material) may be achieved in two parallel reactors,
whereas Hydraulic Retention Times (HRT) of 10–20 days have been reported (Williams et al.,
2003). The process has been tested on a number of waste as mechanically or source-separated
MSW, sewage sludge, slaughterhouse waste, fish waste and animal manure. One characteristic
of this process is its main reactor, which is divided into various zones in a simple way. The
first zone is made up of a pre-chamber inside the main reactor. The mixing in the reactor is by
pneumatic stirring, where biogas is performed pumped through the base of the reactor. A small
part of the digestate is mixed into the newly fed bio waste to speed up the process by
inoculation.

6 Valorga:
This process uses a vertical digester with biogas recirculation (internally, within the digester)
and typically operates with a 25–32% VS-content and a HRT of 18–25 days. Produced biogas
ranges between 80 and 160 m3/Mg (input material). This process was initially designed to treat
OFMSW and was later adapted to treating mixed MSW It was developed in France and is a
semi-dry mesophilic process, which takes place in the following way: after pre-treatment, the
waste is mixed with recycled process water

7 Dranco:
The Dry Anaerobic Composting (Dranco) process is a thermophilic (reported in the range of
50–58˚C), high-solids, single-stage technology with no biogas recirculation and a 15–40% VS-
content. HRT in the vertical digester is typically 20 days, biogas production is between 100
and 200 m3/Mg (input material) and plant capacities 10,000–35,000 Mg/year have been
reported (Verma, 2002). It is a pure dry-processor treatment of the OFMSW. Indeed, this
process requires high TS content in the reactor in order to have optimal performance.

8.Kompogas:
This high VS-content digester with no gas recirculation is operated at a 15–20 days HRT;
whereas a typical biogas rate of 100 m3/Mg of input material is reported. The Kompogas
process is a dry-process developed in Switzerland and operates in the thermophilic range
(Ahring,2003). The reactor is a horizontal cylinder and the flow through the reactor is a plug
flow. In the reactor, a stirrer provides some mixing of the waste. Recirculation of a part of the
effluent to the incoming substrate ensures inoculation.

9 BTA:
This is a multi-stage, low-solids system for treating either mixed MSW or source-separated
OFMSW. BTA combines waste pre-treatment and separation stages in a fully enclosed and
reportedly highly automated facility, whose capacity may be between 2000 and 150,000
Mg/year It is a wet AD process, which was conceived in 1984 and consists of wet-mechanical
pre-treatment and biological conversion of organics by use of AD (Blischke, 2004)

10 The BIMA Digester (by Entec Biogas GmbH)

Entec Biogas GmbH of Austria builds digesters that treat primarily agricultural, industrial, and
municipal wastewater. One system designed for Schaalsee Biogas & Recycling GmbH in
Kogel, Germany treats food and restaurant waste from Hamburg and Mecklenburg
Vorpommern in two 2,600 m³ (690,000 gal) constantly stirred tank reactors. The operation of
the system mirrors that of the Waasa digester. The company also designed a self-mixing system
known as the BIMA digester which eliminates mechanical mixing by utilizing the pressure
differential between two chambers within the reactor. The two-chamber system uses the
produced biogas to create a level difference in the chambers and in this way, builds up a mixing
pressure of up to 500 mbar. The turbulent mixing occurs against the biogas production in
intervals of 4-10 times a day. Ideal applications of this system are high solid sludge and waste,
such as in the sewage sludge treatment, treatment of organic solid wastewater, manure, organic
household and industrial waste.

11 Single-stage Dry Systems

In dry, or high-solids, systems, the digester contents are kept at a solids content of 20-40% TS
(equivalent to 60-80% MC). Handling material at high solids concentration requires different
pre-treatment and transfer equipment (i.e., conveyor belts, screws, and special pumps for the
highly viscous streams). Research in the 1980s indicated that biogas yields and production rates
for single-stage dry systems were as high as or greater than that of wet systems. The challenge
of dry systems is handling, mixing, and pumping the high-solids streams rather than
maintaining the biochemical reactions. Although some of the handling equipment (such as
pumps capable of handling high-solids slurries) may be more expensive than those for wet
systems, the dry systems are more robust and flexible regarding acceptance of rocks, glass,
metals, plastics, and wood pieces in the reactor. These materials are not biodegradable and will
not contribute to biogas production but they generally can pass through the reactor without
affecting conversion of the biomass components.

12 Multi-stage Digesters
Digesters that are operated in parallel are not multi-stage digesters; when each reactor is a
separate single-stage digester. This may be done because of tank size limitations, to simplify
management, or to expand capacity of an existing plant. A true multi-stage digester applies
different conditions to the reactors in each stage. The difference can be in the organic loading
rate (OLR) of each stage, the presence or absence of oxygen, the introduction of an intermediate
treatment, or the overall reactor configuration. Many different combinations or factors are
possible

13 The Linde-KCA Process (by Linde-KCA-Dresden GmbH)

Linde-KCA has built low and high solids (wet and dry) digestion systems and mechanical
biological treatment systems (MBT) for separated MSW since 1985 and currently has eight
digesters operating in Germany, Portugal, Spain, and Luxembourg, mesophilic and
thermophilic systems include aerobic composting systems with mechanical manipulation of
the feedstock and intensive aeration. Some systems include intensive aerobic digestion as a
pre-process for a feedstock that is later anaerobically digested.
14 The ArrowBio Process (by ArrowBio, ArrowEcology & Engineering
Overseas Ltd.)
The ArrowBio process integrates separation and preparation (preprocessing) and advanced
anaerobic digestion (Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket digestion or UASB) via the medium
of water. The water is derived from the moisture content of the waste. Clean recyclables are
recovered from mixed waste via gravitational separation in water, and biodegradable organics
are extensively converted to methane-rich biogas.

15 The Biopercolat Process (by WEHRLE Umwelt GmbH)

The Biopercolat process by WEHRLE Umwelt GmbH is a dry-wet, two-stage process. The
first hydrolysis stage is carried out under partial aerobic conditions with high solids content
Process water is continually percolated through the hydrolysis reactor – a horizontal tunnel that
slowly rotates in order to slightly aerate the mixture and prevent clogging and channeling. The
leachate passes on to the second-stage fermentation reactor – an anaerobic plug flow filter filled
with support material operating at mesophilic temperature. After two to three days in the
percolator, the solids are separated and transferred to an enclosed tunnel composter. The liquid
fraction is transferred to the fermentation reactor, and displaced liquid is partly recirculated
back through the percolator and partly aerated for disposal as wastewater.

16 The Biocel System (by Orgaworld bv)

The Biocel system was developed in the 1980s and 1990s in Holland at the Wageningen
University as a part of the early research on high-solids digestion of MSW. The initial goal of
the system was to reduce cost by simplifying material handling and eliminating the need for
mixing while simultaneously achieving relatively high loading and conversion rates. Success
with the lab-scale system led to construction of a pilot 5 m³ (1,000 gal) reactor by the early
1990s which was used for more extensive testing of start-up, heating, and leachate recycling.
By 1997 a full-scale 50,000 MT/y (55,000 tons/y) plant consisting of a digester and enclosed
post-digestion aeration beds had been built in Holland to treat SS-OFMSW. Currently the
Dutch company Orgaworld owns and operates the Biocel plant along with several tunnel
composting facilities and one AD facility also in the Netherlands. The company plans to
increase electricity production to >10 million kWh/y by treating up to their permitted 85,000
MT/y (94,000 tons/y).

17 The SEBAC System (Sequential Batch Anaerobic Composting)

The SEBAC system was developed in the early 1990s at the University of Florida with the goal
of eliminating mixing and minimizing handling while maintaining high conversion rates and
system stability. Similar to the Biocel process, the SEBAC system consists of two or three-
batch, leach-bed reactors with leachate recirculation by sprayer, but unlike the Biocel system,
the SEBAC digesters are loaded in sequence such that leachate can be transferred between
reactors. OFMSW is roughly chopped to 10 cm and placed in a batch reactor. Leachate from a
mature reactor is sprayed onto the fresh material and recycled to the top of the pile until
methanogenesis stabilizes