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Sustainable Bioprocess Combining Fed-Batch Pretreatment Followed by Semi-Continuous Anaerobic Digestion of Brewer’s Spent Grains for Biomethane Production

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Abstract

The development of novel and sustainable bioprocesses for the valorization of agri-food by-products is required for the food industry to transition to a circular economy. The objective of this study to evaluate a sequential process consisting of fed-batch pretreatment followed by semi-continuous anaerobic digestion of brewer’s spent grains for the production of biomethane and bioenergy. Anaerobic digestion was conducted under mesophilic and methanogenic conditions, and the digestate and corresponding biogas were characterized to determine the process efficiency. Experimental results indicate that the fed-batch pretreatment improves the biogas production obtained from the semi-continuous process. The methane yield during the fed-batch pretreatment was 11.89 L CH4/kg TVSadded, while in the semi-continuous process, the yield was 30.61 L CH4/kg TVSadded. The biogas produced in the semi-continuous process could generate electricity (66.9 kWh/t) and heat (316.75 MJ/t), avoiding greenhouse gas emissions (20.81 kg CO2eq/t). Implementing the novel anaerobic digestion system could be a promising approach for the valorization of brewery by-products, producing renewable energy from biomass.

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Acknowledgements

Katherine Vaz Gomes completed this work as part of her Major Qualifying Project at WPI.

Funding

This work was supported by the Brazilian Science and Research Foundation (CNPq) (productivity grants 302451/2021–8); Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES, Brazil) (Finance code 001); and São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP, Brazil) (grant numbers 2018/14938–4 for TFC, 2019/26925–7 for WGS, 2020/10323–5 for LSB).

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Author notes

  1. Rafael Gabriel da Rosa and William Gustavo Sganzerla contributed equally.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Food Engineering (FEA), University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Rua Monteiro Lobato, 80, Campinas, SP, 13083-862, Brazil

    Rafael Gabriel da Rosa, William Gustavo Sganzerla, Luz Selene Buller, Maria Paula Jimenez-Castro & Tânia Forster-Carneiro

  2. Department of Chemical Engineering, Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), 100 Institute Road, Goddard Hall 123, Worcester, MA, USA

    Katherine Vaz Gomes & Michael T. Timko

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  1. Rafael Gabriel da Rosa
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da Rosa, R.G., Sganzerla, W.G., Buller, L.S. et al. Sustainable Bioprocess Combining Fed-Batch Pretreatment Followed by Semi-Continuous Anaerobic Digestion of Brewer’s Spent Grains for Biomethane Production. Bioenerg. Res. 17, 690–699 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12155-023-10666-8

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