Application of the Initial Rate Method in Anaerobic Digestion of Kitchen Waste

This article proposes a methane production approach through sequenced anaerobic digestion of kitchen waste, determines the hydrolysis constants and reaction orders at both low total solid (TS) concentrations and high TS concentrations using the initial rate method, and examines the population growth model and first-order hydrolysis model. The findings indicate that the first-order hydrolysis model better reflects the kinetic process of gas production. During the experiment, all the influential factors of anaerobic fermentation retained their optimal values. The hydrolysis constants and reaction orders at low TS concentrations are then employed to demonstrate that the first-order gas production model can describe the kinetics of the gas production process. At low TS concentrations, the hydrolysis constants and reaction orders demonstrated opposite trends, with both stabilizing after 24 days at 0.99 and 1.1252, respectively. At high TS concentrations, the hydrolysis constants and the reaction orders stabilized at 0.98 (after 18 days) and 0.3507 (after 14 days), respectively. Given sufficient reaction time, the hydrolysis involved in anaerobic fermentation of kitchen waste can be regarded as a first-order reaction in terms of reaction kinetics. This study serves as a good reference for future studies regarding the kinetics of anaerobic digestion of kitchen waste.