[Digestion] Paul's human waste

[Claudia wendland]

Dear Paul,

I am doing research on AD of human waste (toilet wastewater so called 
blackwater). Here is a summary of my paper for the IWA conference small 
systems in Mexico March 2006:

Anaerobic digestion of blackwater from vacuum toilets and kitchen refuse 
in a continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR)

C. Wendland, S. Deegener, J. Behrendt, P. Toshev and R. Otterpohl
Institute of Wastewater Management, Hamburg University of Technology, 
Germany (TUHH)

Abstract 
The objective of this research was mesophilic anaerobic digestion of 
blackwater from vacuum toilets (BW) and kitchen refuse (KR) in a CSTR in 
an ecological sanitation system. A detailed investigation of the BW 
characteristics was carried out. The research on anaerobic digestion was 
performed with three CSTR of each 10 l volume at HRT of 10, 15 and 20 
days. The digestion of BW at 20 days HRT showed stable performance, 
without inhibition effects due to relatively high ammonium 
concentrations. The removal of total and particulate COD was 61% and 
53%, respectively, and the methane yield 10 lCH4/cap/day. The addition 
of kitchen refuse (KR) improved the performance of the CSTR in terms of 
COD removal efficiency and methane yield. At 20 days HRT the removal of 
total and particulate COD increased up to 71% and 67%, respectively, and 
the methane yield to 27 lCH4/cap/day. The results at 15 days HRT showed 
similar performance. At HRT of 10 days, the anaerobic treatment was 
limited but reached steady state conditions at higher VFA concentrations 
in the effluent, with a decrease of COD removal of 30-33% and of methane 
yield of 19-21%. Assumed that 65% of the COD load from BW is collected 
in the housing estate, the expected methane yields for 100% BW 
collection are accordingly higher.

Keywords
anaerobic digestion; kitchen refuse; blackwater; ecological sanitation; 
vacuum toilets; CSTR

If you are interested in more info please let me know

Best regards from Hamburg
Claudia

-- 
***********************************************************
Claudia Wendland
Institute of Wastewater Management and Water Protection
Hamburg University of Technology
Eißendorfer Straße 42
21073 Hamburg
Tel:+49 40 42878 3441
Fax:+49 40 42878 2684
c.wendland at tuhh.de
www.tu-harburg.de/aww
***********************************************************