Temperature Control Effect on Cheese Whey Anaerobic Digestion with Low-Cost Tubular Digesters

Cheese whey (CW) is a worldwide abundant by-product of the cheese industry, which can be used for biogas production if further processing is not performed to produce other valuable food products. This study evaluates biogas production from CW in low-cost, tubular reactors, thus comparing the effect of temperature control. CW was monodigested in two tubular reactors at the pilot scale: one of them with temperature control (30 ± 3 °C) and the other one working at environmental conditions. The results show that CW could be monodigested in pilot scale tubular reactors, thus yielding high methane. Temperature control (30 ± 3 °C) at the pilot scale led to higher methane yields under all tested operating conditions, thus reaching 565.8 ± 20.9 L kg⁻¹_VS at an Organic Loading Rate (OLR) of 0.416 ± 0.160 kg_VS L⁻¹ d⁻¹, which was higher than the maximum yield obtained without temperature control (445.6 ± 21.9 L kg⁻¹_VS) at 0.212 ± 0.020 kg_VS L⁻¹ d⁻¹. Methane yield differences were attributed to the increase in temperature, thus leading to a more stable process and a higher degradation capacity. The increase in temperature is only worthwhile if adequate thermal insulation is used between the digester and the soil; otherwise, the increase in biogas production will not meet the digester’s heat demand. The anaerobic monodigestion of CW in low-cost tubular reactors is a promising alternative for CW valorization, thus leading to high biogas yields, which can be used in several energy applications replacing fossil fuels.