Optimization of Dry Anaerobic Fermentation of Solid Organic Wastes

Dry methane fermentation is an innovative anaerobic digestion technique to treat solid bio-wastes without dilution for potential energy recovery with nutrient rich fertilizer and sustainable waste management. Although dry anaerobic fermentation offers great advantages like utilization of wastes in its produced form, high organic loading rate, no liquid effluent and comparable amount of biogas production with wet fermentation, commercial dry anaerobic digestion is scarcely used so far. In order to develop feasible dry fermentation process, it is important to review the optimization techniques and suggested possible areas where improvements could be made, including the reactor configuration, mixing, feed stocks, co-digestion, pretreatment and environmental conditions within the digester.