**Abstract**

Anaerobic digestion is a widely used process for waste treatment and energy production. This natural process takes place in a controlled environment, anaerobic digesters. Mixing is one of the main operating parameters. The understanding of the flows during the agitation of the medium is crucial for the optimization of the process yield. In fact, the mass and heat transfers are enhanced by the agitation. However, the complex biochemical reactions can be inhibited with overly vigorous agitation. A detailed and in-depth understanding of the phenomena occurring during agitation requires modeling studies. In this chapter, we propose a general approach, based on computational fluid mechanics (CFD), to analyze the mechanical mixing of an anaerobic reactor. We apply this work to the anaerobic digestion of the sugarcane vinasse, which is a liquid waste generated during the production of alcohol. The single-phase Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) simulations of mechanical agitation of Newtonian fluids for different rotational speeds are presented. The equations system is closed with the standard k-epsilon turbulence model. The flow field is analyzed with the velocity profiles, the Q and Lambda2 fields, the pressure and the vorticity.

**Keywords:** anaerobic digestion, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), Newtonian, mechanical mixing, vinasse, RANS
