Context:

Anaerobic Digestion (AD) is a well-established process and widely used for wastewater treatment and power generation worldwide. In engineering, the Anaerobic Digestion Model number 1 (ADM1) is the preferred tool for predicting the behavior of AD. However, this model requires a detailed characterization of the input substrate, which is often a difficult and expensive process. This paper pre-sents an analysis of the input waste variables in the ADM1 and its effects on the biogas production, in order to identify on which variables the characterization should be centered.

Method:

A sensitivity analysis was performed using a simple methodology that consisted of establishing a reference case and change the value of each input concentrations one at a time leaving the other para-meters equal. For this a specific range of variation was defined using the values of parameter extracted from several references. Simulations were done in MATLAB/Simulink R using a routine developed by the authors based on the ADM1 implementation proposed in the Lund University, Sweden.

Results:

The analysis reveals that most critical variables involved in the methane production are tem-perature, volumetric flow rate of substrates and the concentrations of proteins, lipids and carbohydrates. For the case analyzed, variations in concentrations of lipids and carbohydrates increase the production of methane by more than 500 %.

Conclusions:

In the concentrations of proteins, lipids and carbohydrates should focus the characterization of waste input when the ADM1 is implemented. Also, simulations shows that the input concentrations should be carefully estimated because oversizing of these can cause erroneous results.

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