Anaerobic digestion is a biotechnology that can be used to convert various biodegradable organic materials into methane-rich biogas fuel. The anaerobic digestion of municipal solid waste and sewage sludge is a process that has become a promising technology in waste management throughout the world .Digestion occurs in a four-step process: hydrolysis, acidogenesis, acetogenesis and methanogenesis...

BACKGROUND In recent years biogas plants in Germany have been supposed to be involved in amplification and dissemination of pathogenic bacteria causing severe infections in humans and animals. In particular, biogas plants are discussed to contribute to the spreading of Escherichia coli infections in humans or chronic botulism in cattle caused by Clostridium botulinum. Metagenome datasets of mic...

The value of biogas produced at small scale facilities, such as farm scale biogas plants, can increase by upgrading it to vehicle fuel quality. However, commercial upgrading technologies available today are very costly for small scale applications. Ash from combustion of wood fuels has a high content of Ca, which indicates favourable conditions for a high CO2 uptake capacity from biogas. The ob...

This work analyzes the environmental impacts of milk production in an intensive dairy farm situated in the Northern Italy region of the Po Valley. Three manure management scenarios are compared: in Scenario 1 the animal slurry is stored in an open tank and then used as fertilizer. In scenario 2 the manure is processed in an anaerobic digestion plant and the biogas produced is combusted in an in...

Anaerobic co-digestion technology is increasingly used to simultaneously treat solid and liquid organic waste to balance nutrient content, to reduce the negative effects of toxic compounds in the process, and to increase biogas yield. The aim of this study was to analyze the economic performance of co-digestion plants fed with agro-industrial wastes as a function of installed power, with a meth...

Application of fish sludge as fertiliser to agricultural land can contribute to closing nutrient cycles in fish farming. The effect of different treatment technologies on the nitrogen fertilisation effects of fish sludge was studied by a bioassay with barley (Hordeum vulgare), an incubation and a field experiment. Dried fish sludge resulted in relative agronomic efficiency of 50-80% compared wi...

The application of anaerobic digestion technology is growing worldwide because of its economic and environmental benefits. As a consequence, a number of studies and research activities dealing with the determination of the biogas potential of solid organic substrates have been carrying out in the recent years. Therefore, it is of particular importance to define a protocol for the determination ...

The integrated generation of solid fuel and biogas from biomass (IFBB) is particularly designed for the conversion of semi-natural and high biodiversity grassland biomass into energy. This biomass is problematic in common energy conversion techniques, e.g. biogas conversion or combustion, because of its chemical composition. The IFFB process separates the material into a fibre rich solid fuel a...