An Evaluation of the Effects of the Potato Starch on the Biogas Produced from the Anaerobic Digestion of Potato Wastes

Abstract

Anaerobic digestion (AD) has undergone many developments since its first appearance. Despite that, there are still some environmental and economical obstacles that are limiting its sustainability. On the other hand, different types of starch have proven their effectiveness in some different applications. Food processing industries are considered one of the largest generators of waste in the environment. With an aid of the response surface methodology (RSM), the proposed study aimed to find an optimised way to overcome the obstacles by studying the impacts of the starch isolated from the potato peels on the biogas produced from the AD of potato peels before and after starch separation. The study found that potato peels represented approximately 12.5% of the potato total weight. The starch has only a slight influence on the quantity of the biogas produced and much lower influences on its quality. This finding suggests further investigation is required on the production of starch bio-based products simultaneously with the biogas and bio-slurry, which may mitigate environmental influences and economical obstacles of AD and make it more commercially attractive. The study showed also that the highest energy gain by the g-VS/0.2 L of potato peels was 62.9% at 35 °C, 1.62 g-VS/0.2 L organic concentration and 50% sludge concentration, which yielded a maximum CH4 of 72.4%.

Bioproducts from agro-industrial plant residues: opportunities for sustainable reuse / Bioprodutos de resíduos agroindustriais vegetais: oportunidades ao reaproveitamento sustentável

“…As noted in Table 3, there is a wide variety of processes that can be used in the production of bioproducts and bioinputs. Processes such as calcination (Gu et al 2018), hydrodistillation (Tavares et al 2020), lyophilization (Rubio et al 2020), anaerobic anaerobic digestion (Alrefai et al 2020), extraction (Akond and Lynam 2020), fermentation ( Coimbra et al 2021), enzymatic hydrolysis (Corchado-Lopo et al 2021), hydrothermal liquefaction (Cervi et al 2021), saccharification (Marques and Aguiar-Oliveira 2020), transesterification (Khounani et al 2021b) among others, they are difficult to implement due to the great procedural and technological complexity, which requires greater investment, especially in equipment and infrastructure, making it difficult to implement as a strategy for the use of waste in the Extreme South of Bahia. The simplest processes that facilitate implementation in the region are found in other bioproducts, such as soil corrective using orange peel and sugarcane bagasse (Debernardi-Vázquez et al 2020) for composting, biochar using pie castor bean (Silva et al 2021), sunflower seed (Casoni et al 2019), cherry kernel (Pollard and Goldfarb 2021), filter cake and sugarcane molasses (Bernardino et al 2018;, branches, stems, roots and leaves of trees (Martín et al 2017), oat husk (Srivastava et al 2020), baru endocarp/mesocarp (Rambo et al 2020a;Rambo et al 2020b), coffee and cocoa husks (Milian-Luprón et al 2020) obtained by pyrolysis and briquettes using tree branches, trunks, roots and leaves (Nunes et al 2019;Ponte et al 2019), husk from coconut (Nunes et al 2019) and sugarcane bagasse (Ponte et al 2019) through crushing and compaction.…”

Exploring the Characteristics and Applications of Eucheuma Cottonii Seaweed Flour in Crepe Production

“…Current research fine-tunes the application of seaweed flour in terms of taste, texture [34], and nutritional value, prioritizing consumer acceptance [35]. Groundbreaking findings and novel applications have emerged [36], highlighting the recent advancements in technology and methodologies [37]. These studies hint at future directions in seaweed research, underscoring the potential implications of such innovations in advancing the field [38].…”

Recent Advances in Technology, Strategy and Application of Sustainable Energy Systems

“…In addition, significant research effort has also been performed in order to develop novel and more efficient systems. In this framework, Alrefiai R. et al [154] introduced the response surface methodology (RSM), which is a popular design of experiment techniques to study the impacts of the starch on biogas productions from the anaerobic digestion (AD) of potato peels. The progresses before and after starch separation were investigated and compared.…”

“…Apparatuses and equipment used in the preparation of the samples. Reproduced from[154], Energies: 2020.…”