Enhanced Pig Slurry Biomethanation using Pulsed Electric Field Pre-Treatment

The purpose of this study was to investigate if and then how much the methane production of pig slurry can be increased using a pre-treatment technique called Pulsed Electric Field. Laboratory scale batch digesters were used to compare the methane yield obtained from anaerobic digestion of pre-treated and untreated (control) pig slurry. The batches were pre-treated using the following three PEF treatment intensities: 54 kJ/kg, 108 kJ/kg and 180 kJ/kg. The results indicate that the pre-treatment increases the methane yield by 13%, 29% and 50% for the batches treated by 54, 108 and 180 kJ/kg respectively over the control batches.