Estimating biogas production of biologically treated municipal solid waste

In this work, a respirometric approach, i.e., Dynamic Respiration Index (DRI), was used to predict the anaerobic biogas potential (ABP), studying 46 waste samples coming directly from MBT full-scale plants. A significant linear regression model was obtained by a jackknife approach: ABP = (34.4 ± 2.5) + (0.109 ± 0.003) · DRI. The comparison of the model of this work with those of the previous works using a different respirometric approach (Sapromat-AT4), allowed obtaining similar results and carrying out direct comparison of different limits to accept treated waste in landfill, proposed in the literature. The results indicated that on an average, MBT treatment allowed 56% of ABP reduction after 4 weeks of treatment, and 79% reduction after 12 weeks of treatment. The obtainment of another regression model allowed transforming Sapromat-AT4 limit in DRI units, and achieving a description of the kinetics of DRI and the corresponding ABP reductions vs. MBT treatment-time.