Anaerobic mesophilic batch tests of dairy cow manure, dairy cow manure/saw dust mixture and dairy cow manure/ rice hull mixtures collected from bedded pack barn were carried out to evaluate their ultimate biodegradability and two distinctive decay rat...
Anaerobic mesophilic batch tests of dairy cow manure, dairy cow manure/saw dust mixture and dairy cow manure/ rice hull mixtures collected from bedded pack barn were carried out to evaluate their ultimate biodegradability and two distinctive decay rates (k1 and k2) with their corresponding degradable substrate fractions (S1 and S2). Each 3 liter batch reactor was operated for more than 100 days at substrate to inoculum ratio (S/I) of 1.0 as an initial total volatile solids (TVS) mass basis. Ultimate biodegradabilities of 37 ~ 46% for dairy cow manure, 32 ~ 40% for dairy manure/saw dust mixture and 31 ~ 38% for dairy cow manure/rice hull mixture were obtained respectively. The readily biodegradable fraction of 90% (S1) of dairy manure BVS (So) degraded with in the initial 29 days with arange of k1 of 0.074 day−1, where as the rest slowly biodegradable fraction (S2) of BVS degraded for more than 100 days with the long term batch reaction rate of 0.004 day−1. For the dairy manure/saw dust mixture and dairy manure/rice hull mixture, their readily biodegradable portions (S1) appeared 71% and 76%, which degrades with k1 of 0.053 day−1 and 0.047 day−1 for an initial 30 days and 38 days, respectively. Their corresponding long term batch reaction rates were 0.03 day−1.