Model-based mid-infrared spectroscopy for on-line monitoring of volatile fatty acids in the anaerobic digester

The performance of anaerobic digestion is significantly governed by the concentration of volatile fatty acids (VFAs). Though the titration and near-infrared spectroscopy have been used to measure the VFAs in the digester, there is still lack of the establishment of on-line monitoring of VFAs in practical application. An effective quantification method based on mid-infrared (MIR) spectroscopy was developed, and used to measure the concentrations of VFAs in the anaerobic bioreactor nondestructively in parallel. The wavelet denoising (WD) spectra were used as the spectral preprocessing option. Compared with other pretreatment methods, the established calibration model built by WD spectra showed satisfactory results. Further, the model was verified using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), and predictions were made using real reactor effluent samples. Based on this theoretical work, a set of equipment for the in-situ online monitoring of VFAs was designed, which has high feasibility and effectively solves the problems with the current VFAs online monitoring process. These results provide a new solution for on-line monitoring of the anaerobic digestion, and have great potential for practical application.