Making waves: Extracting more insights from anaerobic batch tests - a modeling perspective on production rates

Biochemical methane potential (BMP) tests are standard tools for assessing the biogas potential of organic substrates. This article proposes a novel modeling approach to extract additional insights by focusing on biogas production rate, rather than cumulative volume. Using a virtual digester and the ADM1 framework, we demonstrate that production rate data improves the accuracy of substrate characterization, particularly under codigestion scenarios. These findings support a shift in how BMP data are interpreted, with implications for both research and plant-level monitoring.