Abstract
Anaerobic co-digestion involves the treatment of different substrates with the aim of improving the production of biogas and the stability of the process. In this research, co-digestion of swine manure (SM) and energy crop residues (ECRs) was studied. The mixtures evaluated contained SM combined with maize (Mz), rapeseed (Rs) or sunflower (Sf) residues. Batch and semi-continuous experiments were performed to determine methane (CH4) yields and the behavior of reactors while co-digesting agricultural wastes. Three different proportions of ECRs were tested in batch experiments for co-digestion with SM: 25, 50, and 75% volatile solids (VS). On the basis of the results obtained from batch tests, a mixture with a 50% ECR content was selected for the second stage of the study. Mesophilic reactors with a 3 L working volume were used for semi-continuous experiments. The hydraulic retention time (HRT) was set at 30 days and the reactors were kept under these operational conditions over four HRTs. The addition of ECR to the co-digestion system resulted in a major increase in the amount of biogas produced daily. The highest biogas yield was obtained when co-digesting Rs (3.5 L/day), although no improvement was observed in specific gas production from the addition of the co-substrate.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Raven, R. P. J. M. and K. H. Gregersen (2007) Biogas plants in Denmark: Successes and setbacks. Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev. 11: 116–132.
Weiland, P. (2006) Biomass digestion in agriculture: A successful pathway for the energy production and waste treatment in Germany. Eng. Life Sci. 6: 302–309.
Tranter, R. B., A. Swinbank, P. J. Jones, C. J. Banks, and A. M. Salter (2011) Assessing the potential for the uptake of on-farm anaerobic digestion for energy production in England. Energy Policy 39: 2424–2430.
Ward, A. J., P. J. Hobbs, P. J. Holliman, and D. L. Jones (2008) Optimisation of the Anaerobic digestion of agricultural resources. Bioresour. Technol. 99: 7928–7940.
Álvarez, J. A., L. Otero, and J. M. Lema (2010) A methodology for optimising feed composition for anaerobic co-digestion of agro-industrial wastes. Bioresour. Technol. 101: 1153–1158.
Ashekuzzaman, S. M. and T. G. Poulsen (2011) Optimizing feed composition for improved methane yield during anaerobic digestion of cow manure based waste mixtures. Bioresour. Technol. 102: 2213–2218.
Demirel, B. and P. Scherer (2011) Trace element requirements of agricultural biogas digesters during biological conversion of renewable biomass to methane. Biomass Bioenergy 35: 992–998.
Mondragón, F. A., P. Samar, H. H. J. Cox, B. K. Ahring, and R. Iranpour (2006) Anaerobic codigestion of municipal, farm, and industrial organic wastes: A survey of recent literature. Water Environ. Res. 78: 607–636.
Statistical Office of the European Communities (EUROSTAT) (2011). http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/agriculture/data/database.
Ministerio de Medio Ambiente, Medio Rural y Marino (MARM) (2010). http://www.marm.es.
Chen, Y., J. J. Cheng, and K. S. Creamer (2008) Inhibition of anaerobic digestion processes: A review. Bioresour. Technol. 99: 4044–4064.
Hansen, K. H., I. Angelidaki, and B. K. Ahring (1998) Anaerobic digestion of swine manure: Inhibition by ammonia. Water Res. 32: 5–12.
Kayhanian, M. (1994) Performance of a high-solids anaerobic digestion process under various ammonia concentrations. J. Chem. Technol. Biotechnol. 59: 349–352.
Henze, M. (1995) Wastewater treatment: Biological and chemical processes. Environmental engineering, Springer, Berlín, Germany.
Angelidaki, I. and B. K. Ahring (1994) Anaerobic thermophilic digestion of manure at different ammonia loads: Effect of temperature. Water Res. 28: 727–731.
Mata-Alvarez, J., S. Macé, and P. Llabrés (2000) Anaerobic digestion of organic solid wastes. An overview of research achievements and perspectives. Bioresour. Technol. 74: 3–16
Molinuevo-Salces, B., M. C. García-González, C. González-Fernández, M. J. Cuetos, A. Morán, and X. Gómez (2010) Anaerobic co-digestion of livestock wastes with vegetable processing wastes: A statistical analysis. Bioresour. Technol. 101: 9479–9485.
Probiogas (2010) http://www.probiogas.es/
Hendriks, A. T. W. M. and G. Zeeman (2009) Pretreatments to enhance the digestibility of lignocellulosic biomass. Bioresour. Technol. 100: 10–18.
Palmowski, L. M. and J. A. Müller (2000) Influence of the size reduction of organic wastes on their anaerobic digestion. Wat. Sci. Technol. 41: 155–162.
Gómez, X., M. J. Cuetos, J. I. Prieto, and A. Morán (2009) Bio-Hydrogen production from waste fermentation: Mixing and static conditions. Renew. Energy 34: 970–975.
Cuetos, M. J., X. Gómez, M. Otero, and A. Morán (2008) Anaerobic digestion of solid slaughterhouse waste (SHW) at laboratory scale: Influence of co-digestion with the organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW). Biochem. Eng. J. 40: 99–106.
American Public Health Association, American Water Works Association, and Water Environment Federation (1998) Standard methods for the examination of water and wastewater. 20th ed., American Public Health Association, Washington, D.C, USA.
Van Soest, P. J., J. B. Robertson, and B. A. Lewis (1991) Methods for dietary fiber, neutral detergent fiber, and nonstarch polysaccharides in relation to animal nutrition. J. Dairy Sci. 74: 3583–3597.
Walkey, A. and I. A. Black (1934) An examination of the Degtjareff method for determining soil organic matter and a proposed modification of the chromic acid titration method. Soil Sci. 37: 29–38.
Lobato, A., M. J. Cuetos, X. Gómez, and A. Morán (2010) Improvement of biogas production by co-digestion of swine manure and residual glycerine. Biofuels 1: 59–68.
Chae, K. J., A. Jang, S. K. Yim, and I. S. Kim (2008) The effects of digestion temperature and temperature shock on the biogas yields from the mesophilic anaerobic digestion of swine manure. Bioresour. Technol. 99: 1–6.
Møller, H. B., S. G. Sommer, and B. K. Ahring (2004) Methane productivity of manure, straw and solid fractions of manure. Biomass Bioenergy 26: 485–495.
Vavilin, V. A., S. V. Rytov, L. Y. Lokshina, J. A. Rintala, and G. Lyberatos (2001) Simplified hydrolysis models for the optimal design of two-stage anaerobic digestion. Water Res. 35: 4247–4251.
Xie, S., P. G. Lawlor, J. P. Frost, Z. Hu, and X. Zhan (2011) Effect of pig manure to grass silage ratio on methane production in batch anaerobic co-digestion of concentrated pig manure and grass silage. Bioresour. Technol. 102: 5728–5733.
Vavilin, V. A., S. V. Rytov, and L. Y. Lokshina (1996) A description of hydrolysis kinetics in anaerobic degradation of particulate organic matter. Bioresour. Technol. 56: 229–237.
Labatut, R. A., L. T. Angenent, and N. R. Scott (2011) Biochemical methane potential and biodegradability of complex organic substrates. Bioresour. Technol. 102: 2255–2264.
Lay, J., Y. Li, and T. Noike (1997) Influences of pH and moisture content on the methane production in high-solids sludge digestion. Water Res. 31: 1518–1524.
Sung, S. and T. Liu (2003) Ammonia inhibition on thermophilic anaerobic digestion. Chemosphere. 53: 43–52.
Wu, X., W. Yao, J. Zhu, and C. Miller (2010) Biogas and CH4 productivity by co-digesting swine manure with three crop residues as an external carbon source. Bioresour. Technol. 101: 4042–4047.
Fujita, M., J. M. Scharer, and M. Moo-Young (1980) Effect of corn stover addition on the anaerobic digestion of swine manure. Agr. Wastes 2:177–184.
Llabrés-Luengo, P. and J. Mata-Alvarez (1988) Influence of temperature, buffer, composition and straw particle length on the anaerobic digestion of wheat straw-pig manure mixtures. Resour. Conserv. Recycling 1: 27–37.
Lehtomäki, A., S. Huttunen, and J. A. Rintala (2007) Laboratory investigations on co-digestion of energy crops and crop residues with cow manure for methane production: effect of crop to manure ratio. Resour. Conserv. Recycling 51: 591–609.
Fischer, J. R., E. L. Iannotti, and C. D. Fulhage (1983) Production of methane gas from combinations of wheat straw and swine manure. Trans. ASAE 26: 546–548.
Comino, E., M. Rosso, and V. Riggio (2010) Investigation of increasing organic loading rate in the co-digestion of energy crops and cow manure mix. Bioresour. Technol. 101: 3013–3019.
Braun, R., P. Huber, and J. Meyrath (1981) Ammonia toxicity in liquid piggery manure digestion. Biotechnol. Lett. 3: 159–164.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Cuetos, M.J., Fernández, C., Gómez, X. et al. Anaerobic co-digestion of swine manure with energy crop residues. Biotechnol Bioproc E 16, 1044–1052 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12257-011-0117-4
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12257-011-0117-4