Improving anaerobic digestion of pig manure by adding in the same reactor a stabilizing agent formulated with low-grade magnesium oxide

Struvite precipitation and pig manure anaerobic digestion were coupled in the same reactor in order to mitigate the inhibitory effect of free ammonia and avoid precipitator costs. The stabilizing agent used to facilitate struvite precipitation was formulated with low-grade magnesium oxide by-product; an approach that would notably reduce struvite processing costs. The interaction between pig manure and stabilizing agent was analyzed in batch experiments, on a wide range of stabilizing agent additions from 5 to 100 kg m−3. The monitoring of the pH and ammonia removal during 24 h showed the high capacity of the stabilizing agent to remove ammonia; removal efficiencies above 80% were obtained from 40 kg m−3. However, a long-term anaerobic digester operation was required to assess the feasibility of the process and to ensure that the stabilizing agent does not introduce any harmful compound for the anaerobic biomass. In this vein, the addition of 5 and 30 kg m−3 of the stabilizing agent in a pig manure continuous digester resulted in a 25% (0.17 m3 kg−1) and a 40% (0.19 m3 kg−1) increase in methane production per mass of volatile solid, respectively, when compared with the reference digester (0.13 m3 kg−1). Moreover, the stability of the process during four hydraulic retention times guarantees that the stabilizing agent did not exert a negative effect on the consortium of microorganisms. Finally, scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction analysis confirmed the presence of struvite as well as two precipitation mechanisms, struvite precipitation on the stabilizing agent surface and in the bulk solution.