Towards advanced control for anaerobic digesters: volatile solids inferential sensor

The lack of instrumentation in anaerobic digestion processes is a key bottleneck as sensors and analysers are necessary to reduce uncertainty related to the initial conditions, kinetics and the input concentrations of the process. Without knowledge of the process conditions, the process is inevitably difficult to control. This paper looks into the potential for developing a soft sensor for volatile solids (VS), an important variable that is currently only monitored offline. A VS inferential sensor is developed using data from an industrial process and compared with the results from a simulation study where feed flow and biogas production rate are used for modelling VS.