Livestock waste-to-bioenergy generation opportunities

Surveying techno-economic indicators of microalgae biofuel technologies

“…The nutrients for the cultivation of microalgae (mainly nitrogen and phosphorus) can be obtained from liquid effluent wastewater (sewer); therefore, besides providing its growth environment, there is the potential possibility of waste effluents treatment [19,20]. This could be explored by microalgae farms as a source of income in a way that they could provide the treatment of public wastewater, and obtain the nutrients the algae need.…”

“…These advantages include: (a) capability of producing oil during all year long and with superior efficiency, therefore the oil productivity of microalgae is greater compared to the most efficient crops; (b) producing in brackish water and on not arable land [41]; not affecting food supply or the use of soil for other purposes [2]; (c) possessing a fast growing potential and several species have 20-50% of oil content by weight of dry biomass [2]; (d) Regarding air quality, production of microalgae biomass can fix carbon dioxide [2]; (e) nutrients for its cultivation (nitrogen and phosphorous, mainly) can be obtained from sewage, therefore there is a possibility to assist the municipal wastewater treatment [19,20]; (f) growing algae do not require the use of herbicides or pesticides [42]; (g) algae can also produce valuable co-products, as proteins and biomass after oil extraction, that can be used as animal feed, medicines or fertilizers [3,10], or fermented to produce ethanol or methane [5]; (h) biochemical composition of algal biomass can be modulated by different growth conditions, so the oil yield can be significantly improved [43]; and (i) Capability of performing the photobiological production of "biohydrogen" [22][23][24][25]44].…”

Hybrid microalgal biofuel, desalination, and solution mining systems: increased industrial waste energy, carbon, and water use efficiencies

“…Furthermore, prospective largescale microalgae production locations are often arid areas that exhibit high evaporative losses of between 20-40ML ha -1 annually, which limits the scope and scale of microalgae production in many regions (Chisti 2007;McHenry 2010). Nevertheless, microalgae appear to exhibit superior overall environmental credentials to terrestrial biofuels with smaller land use and water consumption per unit of output compared to agricultural crops (Sheehan et al 1998;Huntley and Redalje 2006;Chisti 2007;Gross 2007;Hankamer et al 2007;Cantrell et al 2008;Chisti 2008;Dinh et al 2009;Borowitzka and Moheimani 2010;Clarens et al 2010). This ability is essentially a factor of their potential to achieve a higher real photosynthetic efficiency than typical terrestrial crops (Sheehan et al 1998;Vasudevan and Briggs 2008;Amin 2009).…”

“…This ability is essentially a factor of their potential to achieve a higher real photosynthetic efficiency than typical terrestrial crops (Sheehan et al 1998;Vasudevan and Briggs 2008;Amin 2009). Moreover, microalgae species can maintain high growth rates in poor quality or contaminated water and salinities higher than seawater (Amin 2009;Beer et al 2009;Hightower 2009), expanding the development possibilities, and enabling new intensive production options (Gross 2007;Hankamer et al 2007;Cantrell et al 2008). In terms of CO 2 addition, some microalgae tolerate high temperatures which allow flue exhaust carbon capture without the need for cooling (Wang et al 2008).…”

Bioenergy in Switzerland: Assessing the domestic sustainable biomass potential

“…Anaerobic digestion of animal manure can be beneficial for the farmer for several reasons (see e.g. [32]): it provides an additional source of revenue through the production and sale of renewable biogas or electricity, it reduces unwanted odours and nuisance gas emissions from the application of raw animal manure on the fields and it generates a high quality fertilizer. The use of manure for energy generation does hence not compete with its material use as fertilizer.…”