CRITIQUE 
ANAEROBIC CO-DIGESTION OF RABBIT MANURE AND SORGHUM
CROPS IN A BENCH-SCALE BIODIGESTER 
María Esperanza Adrover, Ivana Cotabarren, Ezequiel Madies, Manuel Rayes,
Sabrina Belén Rodriguez Reartes, and Marisa Pedernera1

The primary goal of the research paper was to study the performance of a bench-scale
anaerobic biodigester of 93L installed in ambient conditions. The title of the study ‘Anaerobic
co-digestion of rabbit manure and sorghum crops in a bench-scale biodigester’ can still be
considered not too long still encompassed all the important parts of the study that may catch the
eye of a reader or researcher. Similarly, the keywords the authors chose allows the research to be
found easily by other researchers. However, for the abstract, although they discussed the purpose
and methodology of the study, they did not show enough data for the results which might allow
researchers to decide whether they will find it useful. This type of research can be considered to
have educational significance because it is an experimental research that aims to expand the
knowledge in the field it is in.
As for results they found that biogas was produced by the bench-scale biodigester fed
with rabbit manure and ground sorghum grains in a region with significant temperature changes
during the year. Specific methane yield of 134 ml CH4/g VS and a degree of degradation of
85.2% of the substrate. With a substrate intake of 1.7 L/week the biodigester produced 2.4
ml/min of biogas with a mean methane composition of 60% CH4 under stable neutral pH. They
found the liquid digestate composition to have value similar to that of previous literature. The
assessed variables they obtained had small standard deviations, meaning that the biodigester had
reached a stable operation. Their use of the proposed heat transfer model was also validated
using the experimental data, thus proving that it can be a useful tool for design and improvement
of new units.
The statement of the problem was not succinctly done in the introduction and literature
review of the paper. However, they did imply in the introduction that the problem to be tackled
was how in previous works, models for heat transfer of medium and small-scale biodigesters
were based on many fitting parameters and thus cannot be applied to the biodigester studied in
this paper because of the differences in environment and characteristics of the unit. Then they
also mention that the goal of the research was to study the performance of a bench-scale
anaerobic biodigester of 93L installed in ambient conditions. 
The authors selected 47 relevant sources published between the years 1952 and 2019.
Although they did not find a similar study for the co-digestion of rabbit manure with ground
sorghum grains in a bench-scale biodigester, various studies on the independent use of both
rabbit manure and sorghum as raw material for anaerobic digestion were referenced throughout
the review. This justifies the choice of the authors to explore this uninvestigated gap in the
literature.
The authors did not merely quote the references, they also analyzed how previous
research supports the assumptions they made for their own model. The flow and the transition
between the different topics covered within the literature made it easy to understand the
relevance and importance of each topic in the study. While mentioning the goal of the study,
they also discussed the setups and methods of tests which introduced it to the reader without
getting too deep as to not reiterate them later on in the materials and methods.  However, there
was no mention of a hypotheses for what results they expected the study to produce.
The authors discussed the materials and methods thoroughly and clearly. An anaerobic
digester 93L was set up and evaluated for a total period of 16 months. The region where the
study was conducted in Bahia Blanca (Argentina) where temperatures that varies significantly
throughout the year. Co-digestion of rabbit manure with sorghum was considered as substrate for
biogas production. The biodigester operated in semi-batch mode and was fed 1.7L of substrate
per week. The composition (based on weight) of the biodigester feed was 12.3% rabbit manure,
1.3% sorghum crops and 86.4% water. The biodigester was installed in a room with no heating
or cooling system. The variables taken by the study includes: temperature inside the biodigester
and ambient temperature; pH, elemental composition (C, H, N and O), total solids and volatile
solids of liquid substrate and liquid digestate; nitrogen and potassium content of liquid digestate;
biogas flowrate and composition. They also used of a 1-D mathematical model to describe the
thermal behavior of the biodigester under non-steady conditions.
The authors did well in using methods of tests from previous studies to ensure that there
is a standard procedure for testing that can easily be replicated by other researchers. They also
sufficiently discussed such methods in detail and similarly provided the formulas that they used
for the study. There was no control and so no procedures for the control were described. It seems
that there was only one biodigester used in the study and no control was performed. All data of
the study was taken from this biodigester throughout the period of the study. The authors
provided a figure of the biodigester schematic, however certain parts of the biodigester were
simply labelled without dimensions which may cause difficulties in replicating the model. 
The authors discussed the results well in terms of analyzing the results and comparing
them to previous studies. The results were well presented in both table and graph forms and the
authors did well in making the figures understandable. They used related literature to support
their results and discussed their own findings and inferences. The heat transfer model they used
predicted with reasonable accuracy the performance of the biodigester, thus they deemed the
validity of the proposed model. Then they used this model to make a theoretical study which
adjusted variables such as biodigester wall thickness and insulation. They then presented the
figure of the results of the model, but then interpretation would not have been justifiable because
they had no actual data to be compared to the results for the adjusted variables.
Since there was no control used in the study to compare with either the biomass (rabbit
manure and ground sorghum grains) or the bench-scale (93L) biodigester most variables were
only analyzed and compared to that of the other values throughout the timespan of the study. The
values of the variables measured for the biogas and the digestate were only compared to the
reported values from literature. They found that the performance of the biodigester was
‘satisfactory’, however since there was no control or discussion of references in the conclusion
the reader would not be able to understand at a glance whether the results were truly
satisfactory. 
The authors mentioned that a plot-scale biodigester would be designed in the same region
and would be based on the obtained experimental data of the study. Thus, the study was foreseen
to contribute to future scaled up biodigesters that would be based on the same environment and
characteristics from the study. They also mentioned how the proposed heat transfer model which
was validated with experimental data would be a useful tool in the improvement of new units.
The reference list was complete, comprehensive, and included a DOI for a majority of the
sources.