Experimental study on the mechanisms involved in the synergetic effect of anaerobic co-digestion of mature leachate with food waste

In this paper, a leachate anaerobic digestion experiment was carried out in a sequencing batch anaerobic digestion reactor. The anaerobic co-digestion characteristics of leachate and food waste in landfills were studied. To conduct the experiment, 10, 20, 30 and 40 g of TS/L food waste were added to leachate to observe the effect of food waste on the degradation of dissolved organic matter (DOM) in the leachate. The results of this experiment showed that adding food waste into the anaerobic digestion system could significantly increase the gas and methane production per unit organic load, and promote the degradation of DOM in leachate. When the initial load rate of food waste was 30 g TS/L, the gas production was increased by 117.69%, the dissolved organic carbon (DOC) of biogas slurry after anaerobic digestion of leachate and food waste is about 50% of the DOC in the anaerobic mono-digestion leachate. The results show that the combination of leachate and food waste can not only promote the anaerobic digestion of food waste, but also increase the gas and methane production rates; this combination can also promote the degradation of DOM in leachate. The combined anaerobic digestion of leachate and food waste had a synergistic effect.