Addressing case specific biogas plant tasks: Industry oriented methane yields derived from 5 L Automatic Methane Potential Test Systems in batch or semi-continuous tests using realistic inocula, substrate particle sizes and organic loading

•In-house upscale of Automatic Methane Potential Test System to 5 L was developed.•Full-scale inocula, substrates and organic loading were used in tests.•Tests were characterized by short preparation times, accuracy and high-through put.•Same scales, equipment and methodologies were used in batch and continuous tests.•Increased full-scale decision making value of the developed approach was shown.

The primary aim of the study was to develop and validate an in-house upscale of Automatic Methane Potential Test System II for studying real-time inocula and real-scale substrates in batch, codigestion and enzyme enhanced hydrolysis experiments, in addition to semi-continuous operation of the developed equipment and experiments testing inoculum functional quality. The successful upscale to 5 L enabled comparison of different process configurations in shorter preparation times with acceptable accuracy and high-through put intended for industrial decision making. The adoption of the same scales, equipment and methodologies in batch and semi-continuous tests mirroring those at full scale biogas plants resulted in matching methane yields between the two laboratory tests and full-scale, confirming thus the increased decision making value of the approach for industrial operations.

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