Comparative study of OLR and HRT in different reactors and substrates for Biogas production

Aysha Sherieff, A. Swaroopa Rani, Zahoorullah.S.MD

Organic Loading Rate (OLR) is a parameter that indicates how many kilograms of organic dry solids are loaded per meter cube of digester volume and unit of time. HRT is the relation of reactor volume and the volume of daily feed that represents the average time the raw materials spend in the biogas digester. The longer the HRT, the more of the organic matter is degraded. Hydraulic Retention Time (HRT) and OLR affect the biogas process. OLR is the quantity of organic matter to be treated in a specific process at a given time and is related to HRT. All biogas process have a threshold Organic Loading Rate above which it cannot be increased due to either technical limitations that high Total Solids (TS) for the plant design results in inefficient mixing and blockages or microbiological limitations with high Volatile Solids (VS) in feed resulting in intermediate inhibition. The paper compares the OLR and HRT of different reactors using different substrates for Biogas Production.