Opportunities and Barriers to Bioenergy Conversion Techniques and Their Potential Implementation on Swine Manure

Abstract

The objectives of this article are to offer a comprehensive evaluation of the opportunities and barriers for swine manure conversion technologies and to shed light on the gaps that might require further investigation to improve the applicability of these technologies. The challenges of manure management have been propagated alongside the global growth of swine production. Various technologies that target the production of energy, fuels, and bioproducts from swine manure have been reported. These technologies include pretreatments, i.e., drying, and solid separation; biological techniques, i.e., composting, anaerobic digestion, and biodrying; and thermochemical techniques, i.e., combustion, gasification, pyrolysis, liquefaction, and carbonization. The review highlights the yields and qualities of products, i.e., energy, gaseous fuel, liquid fuel, and solid fuel, of each technology. It exhibits that the choice of a conversion technology predominantly depends on the feedstock properties, the specifics of the conversion technique, the market values of the end products as well as the local regulations. The challenges associated with the presented techniques are discussed to ameliorate research and development in these areas. The notable finding of this paper is that there is a need for full-scale research in the area of thermochemical conversion of solid-separated swine manure.

Transformation of Biomass Waste into Sustainable Organic Fertilizers

“…Besides that, the livestock excretions are a major source of greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution, pathogens, and odour. Hence, appropriate manure management strategies such as the conversion to fertilizers of energy is essential to produce minimal effects to the environment while facilitating the efficient recycling of plant nutrients [13,14]. The benefits of applying manure as an organic fertilizer and concerns regarding the long-term use of these manures also need to be evaluated.…”

BioEnergy and BioChemicals Production from Biomass and Residual Resources

“…The twenty-one published papers cover a variety of biomass or waste residuals that have been converted into different types of energy, biofuels or biochemicals including heat [1,11,16], methane [2,4,[7][8][9]17,[19][20][21], electricity [2,11,16], short chain fatty acids [2,19], ethanol [3,12,19], syngas [5,19], nutrient pellets [6], hydroxymethylfurfura [15], and hydrogen [2,10,14,18,19]. The key information including biomass or residuals, products, and technology for the production and type of research are summarized in Table 1.…”

“…Sharara and Sadaka [19] provided a comprehensive review of the opportunities and barriers for swine manure conversion technologies. This work shed light on the gaps for further investigation and improvement of the technical applicability.…”

Fast Pyrolysis of Poultry Litter in a Bubbling Fluidised Bed Reactor: Energy and Nutrient Recovery

“…Bioenergy technologies could play a vital role in achieving the EU2030 targets by reducing the greenhouse gas emissions arising from manure management and fertiliser application while increasing the share of renewable bioenergy. Alternatively, poultry litter or animal manure (dried) could be converted into liquid fuel and value-added products using thermochemical conversion technologies [7,8]. Small or modular pyrolysis units situated directly on poultry farms could produce sufficient bio-oil to make a farm self-sustainable by off-setting fossil fuel consumption for heating poultry houses resulting in economic sustainability and also providing bio-fertiliser for soil amendment (nutrient rich biochar).…”