Improving methane production from digested manure biofibers by mechanical and thermal alkaline pretreatment

Panagiotis Tsapekos, Panagiotis Kougias, A. Frison, R. Raga, Irini Angelidaki

    Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

    Abstract

    Animal manure digestion is associated with limited methane production, due to the high content in fibers, which are hardly degradable lignocellulosic compounds. In this study, different mechanical and thermal alkaline pretreatment methods were applied to partially degradable fibers, separated from the effluent stream of biogas reactors. Batch and continuous experiments were conducted to evaluate the efficiency of these pretreatments. In batch experiments, the mechanical pretreatment improved the degradability up to 45%. Even higher efficiency was shown by applying thermal alkaline pretreatments, enhancing fibers degradability by more than 4-fold. In continuous experiments, the thermal alkaline pretreatment, using 6% NaOH at 55 °C was proven to be the most efficient pretreatment method as the methane production was increased by 26%. The findings demonstrated that the methane production of the biogas plants can be increased by further exploiting the fraction of the digested manure fibers which are discarded in the post-storage tank.
    Original languageEnglish
    JournalBioresource Technology
    Volume216
    Pages (from-to)545-552
    Number of pages8
    ISSN0960-8524
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2016

    Keywords

    • Bioengineering
    • Environmental Engineering
    • Waste Management and Disposal
    • Anaerobic digestion
    • Fibers
    • Mechanical pretreatment
    • Methane
    • Thermal alkaline pretreatment
    • Biogas
    • Efficiency
    • Effluents
    • Fertilizers
    • Manures
    • Batch experiments
    • Degradable fibers
    • Digested manure fibers
    • Higher efficiency
    • Mechanical pre-treatment
    • Methane production
    • Pretreatment methods
    • Animalia

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