3.3 Total solids and volatile solids in bioreactor
Figure-3 shows the TS and VS profiles of the
bioreactor content during the experiment. TS and VS
destruction is a vital aspect in evaluating anaerobic
digestion performance. The most effective performance in
terms of VS degradation was observed during batch
digestion, probably through efficient hydrolysis in the acid
phase. However, on day 10 when the system was operating
under semi-continuous mode, a slight removal of VS was
observed with large fluctuations probably due to sampling
difficulties. Although there is still tendency for further TS
and VS reduction with low or non biogas production, it
presumably because of the inherent hardly biodegradable
constituents, consequently higher ammonia concentration
contribute to process inhibition. According Nielsen and
Angelidaki [11], animal manure such as cattle manure
used in this study contain lignocellulosic rich materials;
hence makes anaerobic digestion quite un-optimum. The