Anaerobic biodegradation of sugar beet pulp

Sugar beet pulp is a by-product of sugar production and consists mainly of cellulose, hemicellulose and pectin. Its composition is suitable for biolog ical degradation. A possible alternative for the utilization of this materi al (besides cattle feeding) can be anaerobic methanogenic degradation. It h as an additional advantage - biogas production. Beet pulp was treated by a two-step anaerobic process. The first step consisted of hydrolysis and acid ification. The second step was methanogenesis. In this paper, observation o f the process of anaerobic degradation and determination of optimal paramet ers is discussed. A laboratory-scale model for sugar beet pulp anaerobic bi odegradation was operated. Results of model performance have shown very goo d pulp digestion characteristics. In addition, high efficiency removal of o rganic matter was achieved. Methane yield was over 0.360 m(3) kg(-1) dried pulp and excess sludge production was 0.094 g per gram COD added.