Principal componente analysis of an anaerobic hydrolysis reactor fed with food waste

It summarizas a two years operation of a 3.3 m3 anaerobic hydrolysis reactor fed with milled food waste. The effect of the operational parameters and substrate composition changes on the fermentation process was studied with the help of a principal component analysis (PCA) to find out the main, minimum and interpretable set of variables and its correlations which determine the reactor response.

Variables under study were the operational conditions (pH, T and OLR), the substrate composition (carbohydrates, proteins and greases) and the reactor response (pH, HR, AR, ethanol (EtOH), acetic (Ac. ac.), propionic (Pr. ac.) and butyric (Bu. ac) acids in the leachate). The JMP-SAS software was used. the resulting tables of the principal components analysis (PCA), relating four input variables with eight response variables, is performed and presented here.