Utilization of biogas produced by anaerobic digestion of agro-industrial waste: Energy, economic and environmental effects

Abstract

Anaerobic digestion of agro-industrial waste is of significant interest in order to facilitate a sustainable development of energy supply. Using of material and energy potentials of agro-industrial waste, in the framework of technical, economic, and ecological possibilities, contributes in increasing the share of energy generated from renewable energy sources. The paper deals with the benefits arising from the utilization of biogas produced by co-digestion of whey and cow manure. The advantages of this process are the profitability of the plant and the convenience in realizing an anaerobic digestion plant to produce biogas that is enabled by the benefits from the sale of electric energy at favorable prices. Economic aspects are related to the capital cost (€ 2,250,000) of anaerobic digestion treatment in a biogas plant with a 300 kW power and 510 kW heating unit in a medium size farm (450 livestock units). Considering the optimum biogas yield of 20.7 dm(3) kg(-1) of wet substrate and methane content in the biogas obtained of 79%, the anaerobic process results in a daily methane production of 2,500 kg, with the maximum power generation of 2,160,000 kWh y(-1) and heat generation of 2,400,000 kWh y(-1) The net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR) and payback period for implementation of profitable anaerobic digestion process is evaluated. Ecological aspects related to carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) emission reduction are assessed.

Enhancing methane production using anaerobic co-digestion of waste activated sludge with combined fruit waste and cheese whey

“…Anaerobic co-digestion of sewage sludge with other waste streams is an environmentally friendly and economically attractive method to overcome low biochemical methane potential of sewage sludge [13, 21–28]. Hublin et al [21] revealed that anaerobic co-digestion of cheese whey and cow manure reduces CO 2 and CH 4 emissions by 3.5 ktonnes CO 2 /year and 5.7 ktonnes CO 2 -eq/year respectively. They, also, indicated that a medium-scale biogas plant is profitable for 12 and 15 year effectuation periods.…”

Tendencias de la bioenergía: del metagenoma de hábitats ricos en azufre a la purificación del biogás

“…Finalmente, en el proceso de residuos son principalmente estiércol (Mejías-Brizuela et al, 2016) utilizado para abonos orgánicos, mediante mezclas de cachaza y bagazo de caña de azúcar con diferentes fuentes de estiércol (Palma-López, Zavala-Cruz, Cámara-Reyna, Ruiz-Maldonado & Salgado-García, 2016); también en la producción de nano-celulosa a partir de la cáscara y pulpa de residuos cítricos (Naz et al, 2016); extracción de compuestos bioactivos de la cáscara de los cítricos como la lima (Padilla de la Rosa et al, 2018), pectina a partir del bagazo de lima (Sanchez-Aldana, Aguilar, Nevarez-Moorillon & Esquivel-Contreras, 2013) y los polifenoles obtenidos de las cáscaras de mandarina (Safdar et al, 2017). Sin embargo, la tendencia actual se inclina por la producción de bioenergía y biocombustibles, por ejemplo la obtención del biogás a partir de lacto-suero y estiércol de vaca, entre otros (Hublin, Schneider & Dzodan, 2014).…”

“…Elaiyaraju & Partha (2016) A partir del biogás purificado se puede generar electricidad, calor y combustible con fines de transportación (Elaiyaraju & Partha, 2016). Se estima que a partir de 1m 3 del mismo se puede producir 1.9 kW*h de energía en forma de electricidad, así como 3.8 kW*h de calor (Hublin et al, 2014). En términos comparativos, 1 m 3 de biogás al 60% de CH 4 equivaldría a 0.7 L de gasolina, 2.4 kW*h de electricidad, 0.6 m 3 de gas natural y 1.3 Kg de madera utilizada para producirlo (Ponce, 2016).…”

Recent Advances in the Analysis of Sustainable Energy Systems

“…This is clearly reflected by a literature review of the previous SDEWES special issues which include a large number of papers investigating this topic, summarized in the following Table 4. In this field, biogas and gasified biomass are probably the most promising bio-fuels for their potential to decarbonize energy systems [116][117][118][119]. Gaida et al [105] presented a detailed review of different strategies to control substrate feed in anaerobic digesters.…”