Optimization of Wastewater Anaerobic Digestion Using Mechanistic and Meta-heuristic Methods: Current Limitations and Future Opportunities

Anaerobic digestion is widely used to treat high-strength wastewater and produces methane as a by-product for power generation. Treatment and reuse of industrial effluent also contribute to water conservation efforts. Nevertheless, the sensitivity of anaerobic digestion system proves to be a challenge in ensuring consistent quality of treated wastewater and biogas production. Hence, it is essential to devise an effective model and control system that accurately represent the dynamics of anaerobic digestion and can respond to changes in process parameters with proper fault detection and output prediction. This article provides a comprehensive review on (1) the anaerobic digester technology and parameters governing its efficiency, (2) mechanistic and meta-heuristic models used to describe this process, and (3) the process control strategies. In this study, adaptive controller was found to be able to provide wider options in terms of controlled and manipulated variables. Nevertheless, an in-depth study is essential to determine the best controller to be applied for a particular system where further optimization can be done to achieve the best performance.

[1]  Rudolf Kruse,et al.  Fuzzy neural network , 2008, Scholarpedia.

[2]  Kaan Yetilmezsoy,et al.  A fuzzy-logic-based model to predict biogas and methane production rates in a pilot-scale mesophilic UASB reactor treating molasses wastewater. , 2010, Journal of hazardous materials.

[3]  P. E. Poh,et al.  Upflow anaerobic sludge blanket-hollow centered packed bed (UASB-HCPB) reactor for thermophilic palm oil mill effluent (POME) treatment , 2014 .

[4]  Han-Qing Yu,et al.  Comparative performance of mesophilic and thermophilic acidogenic upflow reactors , 2002 .

[5]  Wilson Parawira,et al.  Comparative performance of a UASB reactor and an anaerobic packed-bed reactor when treating potato waste leachate , 2006 .

[6]  Zi-Xing Cai,et al.  Intelligent Control: Principles, Techniques and Applications , 1997, Series in Intelligent Control and Intelligent Automation.

[7]  H. A. Abu Qdais,et al.  Modeling and optimization of biogas production from a waste digester using artificial neural network and genetic algorithm , 2010 .

[8]  E. Ugoji.  Anaerobic digestion of palm oil mill effluent and its utilization as fertilizer for environmental protection , 1997 .

[9]  L. Altaş.  Inhibitory effect of heavy metals on methane-producing anaerobic granular sludge. , 2009, Journal of hazardous materials.

[10]  Chin-Chao Chen,et al.  Effect of heavy metals on the methanogenic UASB granule , 1999 .

[11]  Michael J. Cooney,et al.  High rate anaerobic digestion of wastewater separated from grease trap waste , 2014 .

[12]  Wang Yan,et al.  Simulation of a paper mill wastewater treatment using a fuzzy neural network , 2009, Expert Syst. Appl..

[13]  Fabiola Angulo,et al.  A robust adaptive controller for an anaerobic digester with saturated input: Guarantees for the boundedness and convergence properties , 2012 .

[14]  Jérôme Harmand,et al.  Nonparametric identification and adaptive control of an anaerobic fluidized bed digester , 2000 .

[15]  K. S. Creamer,et al.  Inhibition of anaerobic digestion process: a review. , 2008, Bioresource technology.

[16]  V. Alcaraz-González,et al.  Robust Control of Volatile Fatty Acids in Anaerobic Digestion Processes , 2008 .

[17]  Qing Zhang,et al.  Fast Multi-swarm Optimization with Cauchy Mutation and Crossover Operation , 2007, ISICA.

[18]  Ashok L. Varne,et al.  Fuzzy rule based approach for modeling biogas production rate in a real scale UASB reactor treating distillery wastewater. , 2012 .

[19]  I. Yeom,et al.  Treatment of poultry slaughterhouse wastewater in upflow anaerobic filter under low upflow velocity , 2011 .

[20]  Simon Alastair Smith,et al.  Critical evaluation of the sugar degradation pathways of Anaerobic Digestion Model No. 1 , 2009 .

[21]  V. Alcaraz-González,et al.  ADM1-Based Robust Interval Observer for Anaerobic Digestion Processes† , 2012 .

[22]  Ricardo Femat,et al.  A robust feedforward/feedback control for an anaerobic digester , 2005, Comput. Chem. Eng..

[23]  Ioan Cristian Trelea,et al.  The particle swarm optimization algorithm: convergence analysis and parameter selection , 2003, Inf. Process. Lett..

[24]  Mehrab Mehrvar,et al.  Slaughterhouse wastewater treatment by combined anaerobic baffled reactor and UV/H2O2 processes , 2011 .

[25]  V Himabindu,et al.  Thermophilic treatment of bulk drug pharmaceutical industrial wastewaters by using hybrid up flow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor. , 2009, Bioresource technology.

[26]  Carl-Fredrik Lindberg,et al.  Control and estimation strategies applied to the activated sludge process , 1997 .

[27]  Paolo Pavan,et al.  Fuzzy Control of an Anaerobic Digester for the Treatment of the Organic Fraction of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) , 1993 .

[28]  Jérôme Harmand,et al.  On-line estimation of unmeasured inputs for anaerobic wastewater treatment processes , 2003 .

[29]  Denis Dochain,et al.  ADAPTIVE CONTROL OF BIOREACTORS , 1990 .

[30]  J P Steyer,et al.  Robust interval-based regulation for anaerobic digestion processes. , 2005, Water science and technology : a journal of the International Association on Water Pollution Research.

[31]  Beng Ti Tey,et al.  Biogas from palm oil mill effluent (POME): Opportunities and challenges from Malaysia's perspective , 2013 .

[32]  Joel J. Ducoste,et al.  Anaerobic co-digestion of fat, oil, and grease (FOG): a review of gas production and process limitations. , 2012 .

[33]  Herbert H. P. Fang,et al.  Effect of temperature shock to thermophilic granules , 1997 .

[34]  Joo-Hwa Tay,et al.  A fast predicting neural fuzzy model for high-rate anaerobic wastewater treatment systems , 2000 .

[35]  M. Gerardi.  The Microbiology of Anaerobic Digesters , 2003 .

[36]  Xavier Flores-Alsina,et al.  Mathematical modelling of anaerobic digestion processes: applications and future needs , 2015, Reviews in Environmental Science and Bio/Technology.

[37]  B. Tartakovsky,et al.  Simulation and Control of an Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB) Reactor Using an ADM1-Based Distributed Parameter Model , 2007 .

[38]  D. Dochain,et al.  On-Line Estimation and Adaptive Control of Bioreactors , 2013 .

[39]  J. Keller,et al.  Industrial applications of the IWA anaerobic digestion model No. 1 (ADM1). , 2003, Water science and technology : a journal of the International Association on Water Pollution Research.

[40]  Seán McLoone,et al.  Optimal Control of Biogas Plants using Nonlinear Model Predictive Control , 2011 .

[41]  Jan Van Impe,et al.  Mathematical modelling of anaerobic digestion of biomass and waste: Power and limitations , 2013 .

[42]  Sergey Kalyuzhnyi,et al.  Organic removal and microbiological features of UASB-reactor under various organic loading rates , 1996 .

[43]  S.T. Yordanova.  Fuzzy two-level control for anaerobic wastewater treatment , 2004, 2004 2nd International IEEE Conference on 'Intelligent Systems'. Proceedings (IEEE Cat. No.04EX791).

[44]  Alastair J Ward,et al.  Optimisation of the anaerobic digestion of agricultural resources. , 2008, Bioresource technology.

[45]  Wei Wang,et al.  Thermophilic anaerobic digestion of Lurgi coal gasification wastewater in a UASB reactor. , 2011, Bioresource technology.

[46]  R Borja,et al.  Performance and kinetic evaluation of the anaerobic digestion of two-phase olive mill effluents in reactors with suspended and immobilized biomass. , 2004, Water research.

[47]  J. K. Kim,et al.  Effects of temperature and hydraulic retention time on anaerobic digestion of food waste. , 2006, Journal of bioscience and bioengineering.

[48]  J. Gauthier,et al.  Erratum Observability and Observers for Nonlinear Systems , 1995 .

[49]  Youssef Nasser,et al.  Recent advances on artificial intelligence and learning techniques in cognitive radio networks , 2015, EURASIP J. Wirel. Commun. Netw..

[50]  Qinghai Bai,et al.  Analysis of Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm , 2010, Comput. Inf. Sci..

[51]  Alessandro Astolfi,et al.  Set-point regulation of an anaerobic digestion process with bounded output feedback , 2003, IEEE Trans. Control. Syst. Technol..

[52]  Emil Petre,et al.  Adaptive and robust-adaptive control schemes for an anaerobic bioprocess with biogas production , 2013, 2013 17th International Conference on System Theory, Control and Computing (ICSTCC).

[53]  Samir Kumar Khanal,et al.  Automatic process control in anaerobic digestion technology: A critical review. , 2015, Bioresource technology.

[54]  G. Lettinga,et al.  Anaerobic digestion and wastewater treatment systems , 2004, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek.

[55]  A. Alvarado-Lassman,et al.  Brewery wastewater treatment using anaerobic inverse fluidized bed reactors. , 2008, Bioresource technology.

[56]  Zhou Shi,et al.  Applications of two-phase anaerobic degradation in industrial wastewater treatment , 2005 .

[57]  Enrique Roca,et al.  Multi-objective cascade controller for an anaerobic digester , 2011 .

[58]  J. P. García-Sandoval,et al.  Regulation of the organic pollution level in anaerobic digesters by using off-line COD measurements. , 2011, Bioresource technology.

[59]  Laurent Lardon,et al.  Modeling anaerobic digestion of microalgae using ADM1. , 2011, Bioresource technology.

[60]  Alain Vande Wouwer,et al.  Model selection, identification and validation in anaerobic digestion: a review. , 2011, Water research.

[61]  G. Sekaran,et al.  Anaerobic tapered fluidized bed reactor for starch wastewater treatment and modeling using multilayer perceptron neural network. , 2007, Journal of environmental sciences.

[62]  Denis Dochain,et al.  On-line estimation of microbial specific growth rates , 1986, Autom..

[63]  Reem A. Alrawi,et al.  Anaerobic co-digestion of palm oil mill effluent with rumen fluid as a co-substrate , 2011 .

[64]  C. F. Forster,et al.  The effect of heavy metals on a thermophilic methanogenic upflow sludge blanket reactor , 1998 .

[65]  Habib Rostami,et al.  Application of Artificial Neural Network-Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm for Prediction of Asphaltene Precipitation During Gas Injection Process and Comparison With Gaussian Process Algorithm , 2015 .

[66]  Seungyong Lee,et al.  Comparison of methanogenic community structure and anaerobic process performance treating swine wastewater between pilot and optimized lab scale bioreactors. , 2013, Bioresource technology.

[67]  J P Steyer,et al.  Use of modelling to evaluate best control practice for winery-type wastewaters. , 2007, Water science and technology : a journal of the International Association on Water Pollution Research.

[68]  J P Steyer,et al.  Advanced monitoring and control of anaerobic wastewater treatment plants: fault detection and isolation. , 2001, Water science and technology : a journal of the International Association on Water Pollution Research.

[69]  I. P. Marques,et al.  Anaerobic digestion challenge of raw olive mill wastewater. , 2011, Bioresource technology.

[70]  Meng Zhang,et al.  Acute toxicity of pharmaceutical wastewaters containing antibiotics to anaerobic digestion treatment. , 2013, Chemosphere.

[71]  E Roca,et al.  Advanced monitoring and control of anaerobic wastewater treatment plants: diagnosis and supervision by a fuzzy-based expert system. , 2001, Water science and technology : a journal of the International Association on Water Pollution Research.

[72]  M. Veiga,et al.  Treatment of slaughterhouse wastewater in a UASB reactor and an anaerobic filter , 1997 .

[73]  Renaud Escudié,et al.  Control of start-up and operation of anaerobic biofilm reactors: an overview of 15 years of research. , 2011, Water research.

[74]  C. A. Vassiliadis,et al.  Applying hybrid artificial intelligence techniques in wastewater treatment , 1998 .

[75]  Gerard Olivar,et al.  Control of an anaerobic digester through normal form of fold bifurcation , 2009 .

[76]  A. Mohamed,et al.  High-rate anaerobic digestion of palm oil mill effluent in an upflow anaerobic sludge-fixed film bioreactor , 2006 .

[77]  Jan F. M. Van Impe,et al.  Nonlinear and Adaptive Control in Biotechnology: A Tutorial , 1995, Eur. J. Control.

[78]  R. Braun,et al.  Advanced controlling of anaerobic digestion by means of hierarchical neural networks. , 2002, Water research.

[79]  Georgios A. Florides,et al.  A review of simple to scientific models for anaerobic digestion , 2014 .

[80]  I. Angelidaki,et al.  Comparison of UASB and EGSB reactors performance, for treatment of raw and deoiled palm oil mill effluent (POME). , 2011, Journal of hazardous materials.

[81]  V. Radha,et al.  Selection of Optimum Features using PSO- SPG2 for Predicting COD Effluent Level in Wastewater , 2013 .

[82]  Stefano Marsili-Libelli,et al.  Fuzzy control of disturbances in a wastewater treatment process , 1997 .

[83]  Grietje Zeeman,et al.  A REVIEW: THE ANAEROBIC TREATMENT OF SEWAGE IN UASB AND EGSB REACTORS , 1998 .

[84]  P. E. Poh,et al.  Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME) Characteristic in High Crop Season and the Applicability of High-Rate Anaerobic Bioreactors for the Treatment of POME , 2010 .

[85]  Alonso Griborio,et al.  Effect of the organic load in the performance the UASB reactor treating slaughterhouse effluent , 2005 .

[86]  Lourdinha Florencio,et al.  Anaerobic Reactor Design Concepts for the Treatment of Domestic Wastewater , 2006 .

[87]  Chia-Feng Juang,et al.  A hybrid of genetic algorithm and particle swarm optimization for recurrent network design , 2004, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part B (Cybernetics).

[88]  J P Steyer,et al.  Lessons learnt from 15 years of ICA in anaerobic digesters. , 2006, Water science and technology : a journal of the International Association on Water Pollution Research.

[89]  Turan Yilmaz,et al.  A comparison of the performance of mesophilic and thermophilic anaerobic filters treating papermill wastewater. , 2008, Bioresource technology.

[90]  Jonghyuk Seok,et al.  Hybrid adaptive optimal control of anaerobic fluidized bed bioreactor for the de-icing waste treatment. , 2003, Journal of biotechnology.

[91]  Irini Angelidaki,et al.  Anaerobic digestion model No. 1 (ADM1) , 2002 .

[92]  Göksel N. Demirer,et al.  Two-phase anaerobic digestion of unscreened dairy manure , 2005 .

[93]  M. Gerardi.  Anaerobic Digestion Stages , 2003 .

[94]  E Roca,et al.  An expert system for monitoring and diagnosis of anaerobic wastewater treatment plants. , 2002, Water research.

[95]  Ricardo Femat,et al.  An Adaptive Strategy To Control Anaerobic Digesters for Wastewater Treatment , 1996 .

[96]  V. Alcaraz-González,et al.  A robust control scheme to improve the stability of anaerobic digestion processes , 2010 .

[97]  J. P. Steyer,et al.  Identification and disturbance accommodating control of a fluidized bed anaerobic digester , 2000 .

[98]  I. Dunn,et al.  Modeling dynamic experiments on the anaerobic degradation of molasses wastewater , 1988, Biotechnology and bioengineering.

[99]  M F Colmenarejo,et al.  Effect of organic loading rate on the stability, operational parameters and performance of a secondary upflow anaerobic sludge bed reactor treating piggery waste. , 2005, Bioresource technology.

[100]  Neli Dimitrova,et al.  Nonlinear adaptive stabilizing control of an anaerobic digestion model with unknown kinetics , 2012 .

[101]  Zvi Boger,et al.  Experience in Industrial Plant Model Development Using Large-Scale Artificial Neural Networks , 1997, Inf. Sci..

[102]  G Lettinga,et al.  Effect of SRT and temperature on biological conversions and the related scum-forming potential. , 2005, Water research.

[103]  H. Siegrist,et al.  The IWA Anaerobic Digestion Model No 1 (ADM1). , 2002, Water science and technology : a journal of the International Association on Water Pollution Research.

[104]  D. Dochain,et al.  Adaptive control of anaerobic digestion processes—a pilot‐scale application , 1988, Biotechnology and bioengineering.

[105]  Fernando Morgado Dias,et al.  Artificial neural networks and neuro-fuzzy systems for modelling and controlling real systems: a comparative study , 2004, Eng. Appl. Artif. Intell..

[106]  Gauri S. Mittal,et al.  Characterization of the Effluent Wastewater from Abattoirs for Land Application , 2004 .

[107]  Raphael Ortiz,et al.  Toxicants inhibiting anaerobic digestion: a review. , 2014, Biotechnology advances.

[108]  Olivier Bernard,et al.  Nonlinear adaptive control for bioreactors with unknown kinetics , 2004, Autom..

[109]  Datta Madamwar,et al.  Effects of temperatures and organic loading rates on biomethanation of acidic petrochemical wastewater using an anaerobic upflow fixed-film reactor. , 2002, Bioresource technology.

[110]  C. Pelayo-Ortiz,et al.  Robust interval-based SISO and SIMO regulation for a class of highly uncertain bioreactors: application to the anaerobic digestion , 2000, Proceedings of the 39th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (Cat. No.00CH37187).

[111]  Miguel A. Sánchez-Monedero,et al.  Characterization of olive mill wastewater (alpechin) and its sludge for agricultural purposes , 1999 .

[112]  A. Rinzema,et al.  High rate anaerobic waste water treatment using the UASB-reactor under a wide range of temperature conditions , 1984 .

[113]  Ricardo Femat,et al.  Robust Nonlinear Control of a Pilot-Scale Anaerobic Digester , 2007 .

[114]  J. Gossett,et al.  A kinetic model for anaerobic digestion of biological sludge , 1986, Biotechnology and bioengineering.

[115]  Monique Polit,et al.  A fuzzy model for an anaerobic digester, comparison with experimental results , 2002 .

[116]  Bernardino Castillo-Toledo,et al.  Robust discrete control of nonlinear processes: Application to chemical reactors , 2008, Comput. Chem. Eng..

[117]  Olivier Bernard,et al.  Reducing the Anaerobic Digestion Model No. 1 for its application to an industrial wastewater treatment plant treating winery effluent wastewater. , 2013, Bioresource technology.

[118]  Irving J. Dunn,et al.  Modeling and control for anaerobic wastewater treatment , 1993 .

[119]  Jose Alvarez-Ramirez,et al.  Feedback control design for an anaerobic digestion process , 2002 .

[120]  Cihan Karakuzu,et al.  Modelling, on-line state estimation and fuzzy control of production scale fed-batch baker's yeast fermentation , 2006 .

[121]  J. Harmand,et al.  Robust interval-based SISO regulation under maximum uncertainty conditions in an anaerobic digester , 2001, Proceeding of the 2001 IEEE International Symposium on Intelligent Control (ISIC '01) (Cat. No.01CH37206).

[122]  Jean-Philippe Steyer,et al.  Advanced control of anaerobic digestion processes through disturbances monitoring , 1999 .

[123]  Juan M. Lema,et al.  Fuzzy-Based Control of an Anaerobic Reactor Treating Wastewaters Containing Ethanol and Carbohydrates , 2007 .

[124]  P. E. Poh,et al.  Development of anaerobic digestion methods for palm oil mill effluent (POME) treatment. , 2009, Bioresource technology.

[125]  Ricardo Femat,et al.  H ∞ control of anaerobic digester for winery industry wastewater treatment , 2013 .