Anaerobic digestion (AD) technology is used commercially around the world, especially in Europe, which has set some challenging targets to diversify its energy mix with more renewable energy. This study intends to demonstrate, through technology prospecting, the relation between academic research (published articles) and technology development (patent applications) evolved from 1990 to 2015. Published articles were classified under the topics and wastes they cover, which include manure, agricultural and food waste, wastewater, sewage sludge and the organic fraction of municipal solid waste, with the last of these often being associated with co-digestion processes. Meanwhile, the patents in the area are mostly for equipment of the AD process and new methods or means of purifying the biogas obtained. It was found that the patents filed in Europe tend to protect their innovations only occasionally in countries outside the EU. Germany is the clear leader in all the areas of research and the commercial applications of the technologies, followed by Italy, Spain and Sweden. This study also demonstrates the immense potential of biogas throughout Europe, not just for energy generation, but also as a fuel and a by-product of the treatment of different kinds of waste.
A thorough literature review was conducted to investigate the behavior of food waste in anaerobic digestion experiments. The main goal of this literature review was to study the effect of several operating parameters on methane yields and to develop a simplified regression equation to predict methane generation. Using a data prospection methodology, all the papers published within 2013-2015 that contained selected keywords were included in this study (a total of 613 papers). After screening, 167 papers were finally retrieved using the search engines and our methodology. From these papers, data from 231 experiments were recorded and evaluated. The parameters recorded in each paper were: operation mode (batch or continuous), temperature (mesophilic or thermophilic), moisture content (wet or dry), presence or absence of pretreatment, reactor scale (laboratory, bench, pilot, demonstration/full scale), presence or absence of cosubstrates (co-or mono-digestion), organic loading rate (OLR), hydraulic retention time (HRT) and methane yield. The novelty of the work is that it employed various statistical tools to examine the effect of the above-mentioned factors on food waste methane generation. Most of the experiments were performed at mesophilic temperatures, at a wet system without substrate pretreatment. An equal number of papers described mono-digestion and co-digestion studies, and an equal number of papers described batch and continuous reactor experiments. The mean HRT for the continuous processes was 36.7 days. Statistical analysis indicated that the parameters that significantly affected methane yields were the "operation mode" and "pretreatment". A best reduced regression model was fitted to the methane yield data to describe the above effects. As a general conclusion, with this methodology, that involved the analysis of a large number of studies (with different conditions and setups , heterogeneous waste, etc), correlations between some typical operating parameters of anaerobic digestion and methane yields were not obvious.
Anthropic methane emissions can largely be prevented or minimized using technologies that are already available. One such technology is anaerobic digestion (AD), which is used commercially around the world, especially in Europe and the United States, where some challenging targets have been set to diversify the energy mix with more renewable energy. This foresight study was designed to identify which technological solutions out of the many options available for biogas production are attracting most interest, for which purpose patent documents and scientific publications were analyzed. The aim is to identify which raw materials are most attractive for AD and biogas production. It was found that the raw materials that have attracted most research and patenting activity are sludge, sewage, and wastewater, livestock waste, and agriculture waste, which together account for 62% of all the patents filed and 74% of all the scientific publications. The countries most engaged in producing biogas from AD plants are China, Germany, and the United States. We also identified a rising trend in the use of biogas around the world, and a steady increase in the number of patents filed on the subject, especially in Japan and South Korea. This growth is driven, amongst other things, by strategic governmental actions, global environmental pacts, and the realization on the part of industry that anaerobic digestion can be used as an efficient method for treating waste and effluents.
The countries with the most academic output and priority patents are the United States and China, but no institution stands out from the others in this area.
This paper is part of an interdisciplinary and interinstitutional study 1 involving biology, biotechnology and humanities researchers with the aim of examining the gaps as well as the opportunities that bioeconomics macrosegment offers to Brazil. For this, it adopted an action-research methodology based on interviews with stakeholders that work directly in the sector. Eighteen actors were contacted among researchers, experts and entrepreneurs, of which ten gave face-to-face interviews, with open questionnaires, semi-structured. From the analysis of these data, and from a vast theoretical framework, the article delimits biomass as a pillar of bioeconomics and points out the emerging trends of this science such as "green chemistry" and biotechnology. This is a field that condenses an important economic potential and a great capacity to develop mechanisms for the environment's preservation. By analyzing the production chain and its interfaces, the article reveals that Brazil, although it has an undeniable capacity to emerge as a world protagonist in sustainable production, still lacks well-defined public policies that invest in innovation, in addition to the consumer culture's transformation, production and economic development focused on non-renewable products.
A new device measuring water removal during standard dialysis is evaluated. The filtrate, collected from a small hemofilter inserted into a normal Cuprophan hollow-fiber dialyzer, was used to evaluate the total water removed from the patient. The device was tested in 46 patients undergoing regular dialysis treatment; the body weight loss ranged from 300 to 5,600 ml for a total of 71 dialysis sessions. Results confirmed the reliability of the device, as the mean prediction error was 5.4%. No influence of the dialyzer blood rest volume on the prediction error was observed. The authors propose this system as an alternative to bed or armchair scales and emphasize its usefulness for experimental purposes.
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