Production of methane from sugar beet silage without manure addition by a single-stage anaerobic digestion process

Single-stage continuous anaerobic conversion of sugar beet silage without manure to methane was investigated in this experimental work, using a laboratory-scale mesophilic anaerobic biogas digester. The sugar beet silage had an extreme low pH of 3.3. The reactor was operated in a hydraulic retention time (HRT) range of between 95 and 15 days, and an organic loading rate (OLR) range of between 0.937 and 6.33 g−1 VS l−1 d−1. The highest specific gas production rate (spec. GPR) of 0.72 l g VS−1 d−1 could be obtained at 25 days of HRT, with an average methane content of about 63%, at a pH of around 6.8. Since sugar beet silage without the leaves is a poor substrate, in terms of the availability of the nutrients and the buffering capacity, external supplementation of nitrogen and buffering agents has to be regularly performed, in order to achieve a stable and an efficient process. Sodium or potassium hydrogen carbonate addition seemed to function best in our case, among the other agents used, to provide adequate buffering capacity and to keep the digester pH stable during the operation. Use of a new harvest (a new charge of substrate) also affected the spec. GPR values significantly.