Development of a Prototype Pre-Production High Throughput Anaerobic Digester (HTAD)

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Current commercial Anaerobic Digestion (AD) plants are inefficient, low-tech and large scale, only capable of reliable operation within a very narrow range of operating conditions. New Generation Biogas Ltd is exploiting research into AD and modern process control technology to develop a High Throughput Anaerobic Digester (HTAD). A significant increase in biogas productivity will radically change the economics of small Anaerobic Digesters and realise an unfulfilled need for Single Farm AD plants and cost effective sewage processing by Water Companies. A payback period for most inputs of the order of 5 years or less is predicted, significantly less for higher energy feedstocks.The results of research and feasibility studies will be applied to the development of a preproduction prototype HTAD plant and to conduct a trials programme. The objectives of the latter are to: refine the HTAD design and measure performance, reduce costs, testperformance with a range of feed stocks, refine the control system to make the HTAD easy for customers to use and to generate marketing data for future sales. The outputs of the development project will be used to build and market a range of modular HTAD.Benefits to the UK will arise from the establishment of a new research based, manufacturing industry with varied, home and export markets and very sound long term prospects in an area with very limited manufacturing industry. The HTAD has the capability to make a significant contribution to the Government’s Climate Change agenda as AD reduces Greenhouse Gases (GHG) by capturing methane from animal manure, food waste and organic industrial waste; it also reduces nitrous oxide emissions.