Anaerobic treatment of spoiled milk from milk processing industry for energy recovery – A laboratory to pilot scale study

An anaerobic process for the treatment of spoiled milk from the milk processing industry was investigated. It was carried out in a laboratory scale batch reactor and using the obtained data, it was scaled up to a pilot Anaerobic Sequential Batch Reactor (ASBR). The processes include acclimatization of seed consortia and start up of the reactor under room condition. The batch reactor was studied at different pH, inoculum dosage, and Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) loading. The scaled up pilot plant is of 100 L capacity and it was observed continuously for 30 days. At steady state, the efficiency of the pilot plant in removing COD was found to be 92.80%, and it was able to produce biogas volume of 0.311 m3 for 1 kg COD degradation. The results obtained showed that biogas contained a maximum of 69.18% of methane.