The aim of this research line is to study and optimize the production of biofuels through the anaerobic digestion (AD) of organic waste (biohydrogen and biomethane) and the exploitation of lipid-rich biomasses and waste matrices (biodiesel). The research on anaerobic digestion has the following goals: a) the study of the biomethanization of unconventional waste matrices, such as algae, municipa...

On-site composting is examined as an alternative method of organic waste disposal in San Francisco Bay Area restaurants. Since 74% of an average restaurant’s waste stream is compostable material, composting and reuse of organic material would redirect a significant portion of the waste stream from landfills. Economic, ecological, and social costs and benefits of three methods of organic waste d...

The aim of this paper is to design a single input PI fuzzy controller for a nonlinear and time-varying plant – the biogas production rate in the anaerobic digestion of organic waste in waste water treatment. The main contributions are the design of the SI FC, the study of the closed loop control system performance and the estimation of the advantages of the SI FC system in comparison to other s...

Efficient Solid waste utilization is a challenging task. In rural areas organic wastes like cattle waste is available in abundant, which is not utilized in the valuable forms and in urban areas it is disposed off in an improper manner. In this study biogas primarily from cattle waste was generated by using a fabricated anaerobic biogas digester. The methane is easily separated from biogas by re...

By mechanical-biological treatment (MBT) of residual municipal solid waste the behaviour of landfills can be significantly improved. After MBT the organic content (COD and BOD5), total organic carbon, and total nitrogen in the leachate, as well as the gas production rate, are reduced to values lower than 90% of the fresh untreated waste. The volume of the stabilized material to be disposed on l...

The generation of contaminated leachate remains an inevitable consequence of the practice of solid waste disposal in landfills. The collection and treatment of leachate have become common practice in order to prevent environmental pollution. Leachate treatment is highly dependent on the quality of leachate, which in turn is influenced by various factors including waste composition and operation...

The effects of adding of a range of organic amendments (biosolids, spent mushroom compost, green waste compost and green waste-derived biochar), at two rates, on some key chemical, physical and microbial properties of bauxite processing sand were studied in a laboratory incubation study. Addition of all amendments tended to decrease bulk density and macroporosity but increase total porosity, av...

New vegetation in barren areas offers possibilities for sequestering carbon in the soil. Arid and semi-arid areas (ASAs) are candidates for new vegetation. The possibility of agriculture in ASAs is reviewed, revealing the potential for cultivation by covering the surface with a layer of organic fibres. This layer collects more water from humidity in the air than does the uncovered mineral surfa...

Pulses of oil were added to completely mixed reactors fed with dairy cow manure and food waste, after achieving a stable performance at an organic loading rate of 4.6+/-0.1gCOD/(l(reactor) day), an oily waste effluent from a canned fish processing industry was fed in the form of pulses. The oil concentration rose up to 9, 12, 15 and 18gCOD(oil)/l(reactor,) after the pulse feeding in the reactor...

Research Objective — This project focuses on the development of reliable theoretical and efficient computational descriptions of the chemistry of high-level waste simulants in highly concentrated solution and the experimental validation of this approach. It is an extension of previous work which: a) Determined the mechanism of H2 formation in waste simulants allowing quantitative prediction of ...