Anaerobic treatment of piggery slurry - Review

The swine waste industry is growing rapidly along with the world human population. The trend is toward more concentrated piggeries with numbers of herds in the thousands. Associated with these increased herds are large quantities of wastes, including organic matter, inorganic nutrients, and gaseous emissions. The trend in swine waste management is toward treatment of these wastes to minimize negative impact on the health and comfort of workers and animals and the atmosphere, water, and soil environments. Treatment of these wastes has traditionally involved land application, lagoons, oxidation ditches, and conventional batch and continuously stirred reactor designs. More sophisticated treatment systems are being implemented, involving advanced anaerobic digester designs, integrated with solids separation, aerobic polishing of digester effluents, and biological nutrient removal. This review discusses the present and future role of anaerobic processes in piggery waste treatment with emphasis on reactor design, operating and performance parameters, and effluent processing.