For over 20 years, APESA has offered customized anaerobic digestion pilot tests

What is a pilot test?

Pilots simulate, under controlled conditions, the actual operation of anaerobic digestion units and allow for the precise prediction of biological health, biogas production performance, and the production of representative digestate to anticipate its valorization.

What is the purpose of a pilot test?

Establish a proof of concept

Search for the optimal ration

Secure the treatment of new, unknown inputs

Validate sizing and performance

Study and anticipate potential inhibitions

Anticipate digestate valorization

Our tools

15 instrumented pilots

Our fleet of 15 anaerobic digestion pilots from 5L to 500L covers all technologies (liquid, wet and dry processes, mesophilic, thermophilic).
Depending on the issues studied, we mobilize our various pilot reactors and propose a customized study protocol.

Simulation of all process steps

We have the tools and pilots to simulate the upstream and downstream steps of the processes:
- Hygienization,
- Phase separation (screw press, centrifugation),
- Nitrogen reduction,
- Aerobic treatment,
- Aerobic stabilization and maturation of solid phases.
- …

State-of-the-art analytical monitoring

These instrumented reactors are associated with state-of-the-art analytical tools for process monitoring:
- Gas chromatography (GC, µGC),
- Liquid chromatography (HPLC),
- UV and near-infrared spectrophotometry.
All our pilots are placed on a scale to control the working volume throughout the study.

We simulate the actual operation of units over several weeks in order to:

Anticipate risks

Acidosis risks, toxicity phenomena, inhibition, deficiency, and eliminating the risk of biological dysfunction.

Verify proper operation

Based on the planned sizing or by pushing limits to identify the most critical sizing.

Establish performance

Biogas flow and quality, in order to size the unit based on reliable and representative data or to objectively and scientifically establish the gain of certain innovative technological solutions (additives, pretreatments, etc.).