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The livestock sector is a fundamental part of the modern global economy and provides food, clothing, furnishings, and various other products. So as to ensure its resilience to changes in consumer expectations, cost of production, and environmental sustainability, the sector must shift to a circular economy model. Current strategies to recover value from wastes and low-value co-products from livestock industries yield limited value; hence, new technologies are required to upgrade wastes and co-products, and generate high-value products that can feed into the livestock value chain. Anaerobic digestion can convert high organic-content waste to biogas for energy and a stable nutrient-rich digestate that can be used as fertiliser. Microbial technologies can transform wastes to produce nutritionally advanced feeds. New materials from waste can also be produced for livestock industry-specific applications. While aiming to add commercial value, the successful implementation of these technologies will also address the environmental and productivity issues that are increasingly valued by producers and consumers.

This work aimed to enhance the anaerobic digestion of fat-rich dissolved air flotation (DAF) sludge through chemical, thermobaric, and thermochemical pre-treatment methods. Soluble chemical oxygen demand was enhanced from 16.3% in the control to 20.84% (thermobaric), 40.82% (chemical), and 50.7% (thermochemical). Pre-treatment altered volatile fatty acid concentration by -64% (thermobaric), 127% (chemical) and 228% (thermochemical). Early inhibition was reduced by 20% in the thermochemical group, and 100% in the thermobaric group. Specific methane production was enhanced by 3.28% (chemical), 8.32% (thermobaric), and 8.49% (thermochemical) as a result of pre-treatment. Under batch digestion, thermobaric pre-treatment demonstrated the greatest improvement in methane yield with respect to degree of pre-treatment applied. Thermobaric pre-treatment was also the most viable for implementation at slaughterhouses, with potential for heat-exchange to reduce pre-treatment cost. Further investigation into long-term impact of pre-treatments in semi-continuous digestion experiments will provide additional evaluation of appropriate pre-treatment options for high-fat slaughterhouse wastewater.

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