Energetical Comparison of Substrate Disintegration Methods Used for Increasing Biogas Production

This paper presents various substrate treatment methods used to increase biogas production. These methods-mechanical disintegration, thermal hydrolysis and ultrasonic disintegration-are compared from the point of view of energy. This comparison requires knowledge of mass and heat balances. The data needed for evaluating of all processes has been obtained from our previous research and also from our own experiments, especially for the case of ultrasonic disintegration.