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An optimal self-excited heating method for biogas production under cold climate

Yang, Hanyu; Zhou, Bin; Li, Canbing; Huang, Sheng; Chen, Dawei; Long, Xijin; Wei, Juan

Published in:
The Journal of Engineering

Link to article, DOI:

10.1049/joe.2018.9236

Publication date:
2019

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Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record

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Citation (APA):
Yang, H., Zhou, B., Li, C., Huang, S., Chen, D., Long, X., & Wei, J. (2019). An optimal self-excited heating
method for biogas production under cold climate. The Journal of Engineering, 2019(18), 5094-5098.
https://doi.org/10.1049/joe.2018.9236

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The Journal of Engineering

The 7th International Conference on Renewable Power Generation

(RPG 2018)

An optimal self-excited heating method for eISSN 2051-3305

Received on 26th October 2018
Accepted on 11th December 2018
biogas production under cold climate E-First on 18th June 2019
doi: 10.1049/joe.2018.9236
www.ietdl.org

Hanyu Yang1, Bin Zhou1 , Canbing Li1, Sheng Huang2, Dawei Chen1, Xijin Long1, Juan Wei1
1Hunan Key Laboratory of Intelligent Information Analysis and Integrated Optimization for Energy Internet, Hunan University, Changsha, Hunan
410082, People's Republic of China
2Department of Electrical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, 2800 Denmark

E-mail: binzhou@hnu.edu.cn

Abstract: Biogas, as the product of anaerobic fermentation, is one of the main routes to utilize bioenergy. The biogas
production rate is determined by lots of factors, of which temperature determines most. However, when operating in the cold
climate or cold areas, the low digesting temperature often results in a relatively low efficiency or even a suspension in the
fermentation process. This paper proposes a self-excited heating method to increase the digesting temperature in cold weather.
It utilizes the self-produced biogas as fuel to generate heat for heating the biogas digester. The influence of this method on
biogas production rate and digesting temperature are verified in this study. The results show that the digesting temperature
increases about 3%–9% with a self-excited heating method for both household-scaled biogas digester and industry-scaled
digester.

1 Introduction
Bioenergy is generally considered as potential renewable energy to
alleviate the energy crisis and environmental pollution. It is a sort
of energy shaped by solar energy in the form of chemical energy,
which could be retrieved from biomass resources, e.g. sewage
sludge, municipal solid waste, agricultural wastes, and energy
crops [1]. Within different routes of bioenergy utilisation,
anaerobic digestion is the most widely-demonstrated way to meet
the demand in rural areas [2]. Although these rural areas are
usually abundant in biomass resources, billions ton of waste is
otherwise abandoned annually. According to a survey revealed by
the National Development and Reform Commission in 2015, only
15.7 billion m3 of biogas was produced in China, which accounts
for 12.8% of the potential [3]. This fact highlights a considerable
unexplored potential of biogas resources in China.
Due to the biogas industry technique and distribution
limitations, the biogas utilisation is insufficient. One of the reasons
is that anaerobic digestion is a temperature sensitive process: real-
time digesting temperature affects the production rate of biogas [4].
There are three fermentation temperature ranges, namely,
psychrophilic temperature (10°C–25°C), mesophilic temperature
(25°C–40°C), and thermophilic temperature (45°C–60°C) [5]. For
most biogas digesters distributed in rural areas, mesophilic
fermentation is the most economical and efficient. Nevertheless, it
is feasible for those digesters without any other heating measures
to stably operate at a mesophilic temperature in some cold areas or
in cold climate. Even worse, some of them almost frozen or finally
abandoned in such a cold climate, which strictly limits the
application of biogas fermentation [6].
Several researches have been conducted on anaerobic digestion
insulation and heating for constant and continuous biogas yield.
Except for adding insulation materials, numerous studies explored
the use of solar energy as a primary or single heating source to
improve the biogas production rate, especially for household-
scaled digesters [7–10]. It is proposed in [9] that heating the
anaerobic fermentation system by using solar energy combined
with biomass boiler for ensuring biogas fermentation tank working
normally in winter. In Reference [10], a novel over-ground
household solar heating thermostatic biogas system was developed
to improve the biogas production rates in winter in cold regions of
China. G. Kokar proposed a solar energy system for a 5 m3 biogas
reactor in Turkey to maintain the optimal mesophilic temperature
[11]. The results indicated that the biogas consumption for reactor
heating decreased by ∼19%.
As for industry-scaled biogas projects, the ground source heat
pump, boiler and solar greenhouse etc. are used to improve the
fermentation temperature. In [12], it used a groundwater source
heat pump to heat the anaerobic fermentation tank in winter, and
the total savings in standard coal consumption was only 44% of the
demand of standard coal using coal-boilers directly during the
experimental cycle. In [13], a photovoltaic thermal integrated
greenhouse system for biogas heating has been done in the climatic
condition of IIT Delhi, India, which can also be used for generating
electricity, space heating, enhancing production of biogas, crop
cultivation and crop drying, and so on.
Simultaneously, quite a few other heating measures have been
done for the heating digester, including the combusting fossil fuels
and recovering the exhaust heat from the CHP unit. Digester-
heating technologies based on electric heating, natural gas heating,
fossil fuel heating, and biomass heating, have been proven to be
effective, but may lead to a waste of primary energy [14].
To avoid the waste of primary energy as well as to stable the
temperature fluctuation caused by stochastic solar energy, this
paper proposes a novel self-excited heating method for distributed
biogas digesters. The core difference from other heating methods is
that it introduces a boiler fuelled by the self-produced biogas to
supply heat to biogas digester which can be defined as self-excited
heating. In order to accurately evaluate the performances of the
self-excited method, the biogas boiler was added as the single
heating source in this study. This method lays a foundation of
seeking for routes of biogas to heat.
2 Methodology
2.1 System description
The process of self-excited heating is described in Fig. 1. This
system consists of a biogas digester and a biogas boiler, heat
exchanger and heating coils, heat pump circulation and heat water
storage tank. The underground biogas digester is assumed to be
located in a cattle farm, which is fed by enough livestock manure.
When the digesting temperature is lower than the set point, the
produced biogas will be transported into the biogas-fuelled boiler
and then heat the water by heat exchanger 1. Then, the heat
collected by heat pump circulation will be transferred into biogas

J. Eng., 2019, Vol. 2019 Iss. 18, pp. 5094-5098 5094

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 r1
Qup = ∫ 0
k2πr
∂T
∂z z = d1
dr (2)

r1
Qbottom = ∫ 0
−k2πr
∂T
∂z z = d2
dr (3)

d2
Qwall = ∫ d1
−k2πr
∂T
∂z r = r1
dz (4)

Fig. 1 The schematic of the self-excited heating method

where Q, Qup, Qbottom, and Qwall represent the rate of the total heat
fed into the biogas digester from biogas-fuelled boiler, the rate of
heat loss through the up and bottom surface and wall, respectively;
cm refers to the manure specific heat; mm is the mass of the manure
in the biogas digester; Tm depicts the temperature of manure; k is
the thermal conductivity of the ground; r is the radial coordinate; z
is the axial coordinate; t is the time.
As cylindrical biogas digester is axial symmetrical, the heat
transfer model can be simplified in a two-dimensional model by
dividing both sides of (1) by 2πrk, as shown in 5. The two-
dimensional coordinate axis is described in Fig. 2, which is a
sectional profile of the underground biogas digester in a certain soil
column.
r1
Q
2πrk
=
mmcm ∂T m
2πrk ∂t
+ ∫ 0
∂T
−
∂T
∂zz = d1 ∂zz = d2
dr
d2 (5)
Fig. 2 Two-dimensional coordinate axis − ∫d1
∂T
∂zr = r1
dz

digester to create suitable fermentation temperature condition and

increase the production rate in turn, which formulates a self-excited
heating loop. It is noted that the total heat from the boiler which is 2.4 Heat-transfer model
related to the biogas consumption rate, is also limited by the biogas With the specified analysis, the following partial 2-D unsteady heat
production rate. Once start t self-excited heating, the digesting conduction differential equation that describes the transient heat
temperature will dynamically increase, and then reach a relatively transfer process can be expressed in the cylindrical coordinate
stable point when meeting the energy balance. The mathematical system as (6):
model describing this process has been discussed in the next
section. ∂2T 1 ∂T ∂2T 1 ∂T
+ + 2 = (6)
∂r2 r ∂z ∂z α ∂t
2.2 Assumptions
The heat transfer performance is essential to the evaluation of the where α is thermal diffusivity of the ground. In addition, the initial
self-excited heating method. Generally, the total heat loss is in and boundary conditions are stated in (7)–(10). The temperature
proportion to the radiant areas, thermal conductivity coefficient and distributed in biogas digester is equal to the digesting temperature
material properties etc. Thus, several assumptions have been done and is obtained in (8).
for modelling of the underground cylindrical heat transfer: (1)
Physical properties of the soil and insulation material are uniform T(r, z, t) = T m(t), 0 ≤ x ≤ r1, d1 ≤ z ≤ d2 (7)
distributed; (2) the heat carried by the biogas flow during biogas
fermentation is neglected; (3) Complete combustion taken place in The temperature distribution on the upper surface of the soil
biogas fired boiler is assumed; (4) the manure in the biogas is column is stated as
homogenous and fully mixed; (5) the digesting temperature is
uniform distributed; (6) the far-field temperature is assumed to be T(r, z, t) = T a(t), 0 ≤ x ≤ R, y = 0 (8)
constant and equal to the deep ground temperature 9°C [8]; (7) the
distance to the far-field in the soil column is taken to be 20 m. The temperature distribution on the surface of sidewall is stated as

2.3 Energy equilibrium analysis ∂T(x, y, t)

x=R =0 (9)
∂x
The heat transfer in a biogas digester is mainly affected by
meteorological conditions, the influence of the temperature field The infinite bottom surface of the soil column:
and thermophysical properties of the surrounding soil. For an
underground biogas digester, there exists a dynamic interaction ∂T(x, y, t)
between soil temperature and digestion temperature. The manure in y=∞ = T∞ (10)
∂x
biogas digester absorbs the heat from biogas-fuelled boiler but
simultaneously dissipates heat through the surfaces like cover and
2.4 Biogas production model
walls, which formulates a thermal equilibrium. The rate of net
energy gain should be equal to the combination of the rate of In fact, the biogas production rate is determined by lots of factors,
internal energy change of manure inside and the rate of heat loss namely fermentation material, hydraulic retention time and influent
from the surface of the biogas digester, which is expressed as in concentration etc. According to the study in [7, 8], the biogas
(1)–(4): production rate during the anaerobic fermentation process could be
calculated in (11)–(13).
∂T m
Q = mmcm + Qup + Qbottom + Qwall (1)
∂t

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 B0S0 N 3 Solution
γ +(t) = 1− (11)
HRT ⋅ nCH4 HRT ⋅ μ(t) − 1 + N
The model (1)–(16) was solved using Fluent® 6.3, computational
0.051S0
fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation software. The structural grids
N = 0.6 + 0.0206e (12) were meshed in 100 cells to discretise the calculation domain,
which was composed of the digester, insulation layer, and soil
0.0026e0.1319Tm(t), 15∘C − 30∘C column. Then, an iterative method is proposed, which contains the
μm = (13) following steps:
0.013T m(t) − 0.139.30∘C − 60∘C
1. Pre-process: Initial boundary conditions are shown in Table 1.
where, N is a dimensionless kinetic constant related to the influent The thermal properties of the materials are cited from reference
volumetric substrate concentration; S0 is influent VS concentration; [15] and the average daily ambient temperature during January
γ +(t) depicts volumetric biogas production; nCH4 is the proportion 1 to Jan 10 is obtained in [16].
of CH4 in biogas; B0 depicts biochemical methane potential; S0 is 2. Iterations: After initialling, the T0 will be obtained, and the
influent concentration; HRT is short for hydraulic retention time; biogas production γ +(t) at time step t can be computed by (12)–
μm(t) is the maximum specific daily growth rate of micro-organism (13). The new value of the net energy input Q(t + 1) to the
for mesophilic fermentation, which is determined by digesting biogas digester at time step t + 1 are then obtained by (15) and
temperature Tm(t). Tm(t + 1) will be calculated by (5)–(11). If the difference of
Tm(t + 1) and initial Tm(t) is smaller than 10−4, the iteration is
2.5 Biogas-fuelled boiler model taken to be completed, reaching the stable status. The sub-step
is set as 3000.
The core difference of this self-excited heating method is to add a
custom biogas-fuelled boiler as the single heat source to the 3. After generating the results of the iteration day by day, the
system. It is revealed in [3] that the heat loss from flue gas, long-term of the digesting temperature and biogas production
radiation and convention takes up about 17% of the total energy rate are obtained.
input. Given that Its maximum output power is unlimited while its
real-time output power is related to the biogas consumption rate.
Thus, the total heat transferred into the biogas digester could be 4 Case study
calculated in (14) Here, we compare 4 cases containing different scales of the biogas
digesters before and after heated, to illustrate the feasibility and
Q(t)
γ −(t) = (14) effectiveness of the self-excited method. It contains household-
ηexHbio scaled and industry-scaled digesters. The details of each kind of
digester and its coordinate are listed in Table 2.
where γ −(t) is the biogas consumption rate, Hbio is the lower Case 1: digester 1;
heating value of biogas; ηex depicts the coefficient of total heat Case 2: digester 1 + biogas boiler;
loss. Case 3: digester 2;
Case 4: digester 2 + biogas boiler;
2.6 Biogas balance constraint Input the initial value of and the initial net energy input Q(t) and
Tm(t) corresponding to Ta(t) on a specific day. The biogas
In order to maintain the sustainability of this system, one condition production rate gradually increased. It finally reached a relatively
of this method is to keep the balance of biogas consumption rate stable operation status when the energy input rate is equal to the
γ −(t) of biogas fired boiler and biogas production rate γ +(t) of heat loss rate. The substep is set as 3000. The results are computed
biogas digester, as shown in (15). on Intel® Core™ i5 Processors.
The comparsions of the convergence time and iteration times
γ −(t + 1) = γ +(t) (15) between case 2 and case 4 corresponding to different initial Ta(t)
are listed in Table 3. It can be concluded that the low initial
ambient temperature and large construction scale of digesters will
Table 1 Initial boundary conditions
increase the computing complexity or even be out of convergence.
Terms Conditions Expressions Fig. 3(a) and Fig. 3(b) illustrate the comparison of the digesting
upper surface of soil column Temperature T = Ta(t) temperature variations before and after the self-excited heating
side surface of soil column Heat flux 0 method in Jan.1 to Jan.31 in case 1 and case 2, respectively. with
lower surface of digester Temperature T = Tm(t) self-excited heating method, the digesting temperature increased
about 3%–9% for both residential-scale biogas digester and large-
infinite surface of soil column Temperature T∞ = 9°C
scale digester. However, it should be noted that the result in case 1
was invalid on Jan.15 and Jan. 20 while the heated result in case 4
was not convergent on Jan.15, Jan. 20 and Jan. 23. It indicates that
Table 2 Properties of biogas boilers and digesters this self-exited method should be initialled at a certain specific
Term Types Properties temperature, when below the point, the computing result will be
digester 1 House-scaled digester radius = 2 m, d1 = 1 m, d2 = 2.5 m null. For different scales digester, the valid initial temperature is
digester 2 Industry-scaled digester radius = 5 m, d1 = 2 m, d2 = 7 m different. The initial temperature would be higher for large-scale
biogas digesters due to the considerable heat loss through surfaces.
The biogas production rate is generated by (11)–(13) with
known real-time digesting temperature. It can be seen in Fig. 4 that
Table 3 Convergence time and iteration times
the biogas production rate almost varied linearly with the digesting
Conditions Cases Convergence time Iteration times temperature. The daily biogas production rate increased about
Ta(t) = 2.7°C Case 2 Null Null 11.8% for residential-scale biogas digester while 21.3% for large-
Case 4 Null Null scale biogas digesters. The heating effectiveness is more
Ta(t) = 2.8°C Case 2 256s 2839 distinguishing for large-scaled biogas digester with adequate initial
temperature. It should be noted that the contrast values on Jan.15
Case 4 Null Null
and Jan.20 in Fig. 4(a) were overlapped due to the iteration failure
Ta(t) = 12.3°C Case 2 65s 1234 as well as those on Jan.15, Jan.20 and Jan.23 in Fig. 4(b).
Case 4 47s 987

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Fig. 3 Comparison of digesting temperature between heated and unheated biogas digester

Fig. 4 Comparison of daily biogas production rate between heated and unheated biogas digester

Fig. 5 Comparison of soil temperature distribution between heated and unheated biogas digester with Ta(t) = 12.3°C

The temperature distribution along the central axis in the soil
column in stable status with Ta(t) = 12.3°C has been shown in
Fig. 5(a) and Fig (b). It indicates the influence of the self-excited
heated biogas digester on the surrounding soil. In all cases, the
temperature distribution below the surface is very close to an ideal
parabola. When below the lower surface of the digesters, the soil
temperature descended sharply and reach a relatively stable status
at a long distance below the surface.
5 Conclusion
In this study, an optimal self-excited heating method is proposed to
increase the biogas production rate in cold climate, the conclusion
is drawn as follows.
With self-excited heating method, the digesting temperature
increased about 3%–9% for both residential-scale biogas digester
and large-scaled digester. An adequate initial temperature is a
prerequisite for the validity of this proposed method. The daily
biogas production rate increases about 11.8% for residential-scale
J. Eng., 2019, Vol. 2019 Iss. 18, pp. 5094-5098
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biogas digester while 21.3% for large-scale biogas digesters. In
addition, the temperature distributions below the surface with or
without heated biogas digester are both very close to an ideal
parabola.
6 Acknowledgment
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the Sino-US
international Science and Technology Cooperation Project under
Grant no. 2016YFE0105300.
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