초록
Percolation is the important process of extracting the soluble constituents of a fine mesh, porous substance by passage of a liquid through it. In this study, bio-wastes were percolated under various conditions through continuous percolation processes, and the energy potential of percolate was evaluated. The representative bio-wastes from the K composting plant in Darmstadt, Germany were used as the sample for percolation. The central objective of this study was to determine the optimal amount of process water and the optimum duration of percolation through the bio-wastes. For economic reasons, the retention time of the percolation medium should be as long as necessary and as short as possible. For the percolation of the bio-wastes, the optimal percolation time was 2 hr and maximum percolation time was 4 hr. After 2 hr, more than two-thirds of the organic substances from the input material were percolated. In the first percolation process, the highest yields of organic substance were achieved. The best percolation of the bio-wastes was achieved when the process water of 2 L for the first percolation procedure and then the process water of 1.5 L for each further percolation procedure for a total 8 L for all five procedures were used on 1,000 g fresh bio-waste. The gas formation potentials of 0.83 and $0.96Nm^3/ton$ fresh matter (FM) were obtained based on the percolate from 1 hr percolation of 1,000 g bio-waste with the process water of 2 L according to the measurement of the gas formation in 21 days (GB21). This method can potentially contribute to reducing fossil fuel consumption and thus combating climate change.