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Integrating Anaerobic Digestion of Pig Slurry and Thermal Valorisation of Biomass

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Abstract

Purpose

The feasibility of coupling the anaerobic digestion of pig manure and co-pyrolysis of its digestate with milk thistle as lignocellulosic biomass was studied. Kinetic analysis was performed along with an evaluation of energy recovery attained from a combined approach

Methods

Pig slurry was digested under mesophilic semi-continuous conditions. Digestate was dried and submitted to thermogravimetric analysis under inert atmosphere along with milk thistle samples. Kinetic evaluation was carried out using non-isothermal methods. Assessment of the energy obtained from the combined digestion and pyrolysis process was performed.

Results

Digestion resulted in a yield of 308.5 ± 18.2 mL CH4/g VS. The evaluation of co-pyrolysis of mixtures at different contents of milk thistle showed no interactions between the two materials during pyrolysis. The energy need associated with thermal drying of digestate was 476 MJ/m3 of pig slurry.

Conclusions

Co-pyrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass and digestate [25% content of digestate (w/w)] resulted in a lower char production, associated with the lower ash content of the former. The extra supply of energy needed for thermal drying of the digestate might be obtained from co-pyrolysis with biomass. This approach presented an energy recovery of about 29.4%

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competition (Refs.: CTM2013-48697-C2-1-R and CTQ2015-68925-R) for financial support. J. González-Arias would like to thank the Junta de Castilla y León (Consejería de Educación) fellowship, Orden EDU/1100/2017, co-financed by the European Social Fund.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chemical and Environmental Bioprocess Engineering Group, Natural Resources Institute (IRENA), Universidad de León, Av. de Portugal 41, 24009, León, Spain

    J. González-Arias, C. Fernández, M. E. Sánchez & X. Gómez

  2. Department of Electrical, Systems and Automatic Engineering, School of Electrical, Industrial and Informatics, University of León, Campus de Vegazana, 24071, León, Spain

    J. G. Rosas

  3. Centro de Edafología Y Biología Aplicada del Segura, CSIC, Campus Universitario de Espinardo, 30100, Murcia, Spain

    M. P. Bernal & R. Clemente

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  1. J. González-Arias
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  2. C. Fernández
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Correspondence to X. Gómez.

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Electronic supplementary material

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ESM_1: Kinetic analysis for determination of the activation energy of thermal degradation of solid samples (DOCX 19 kb)

12649_2019_873_MOESM2_ESM.docx

ESM_2: Results of Ozawa-Flynn-Wall (Doyle’s approximation) and Vyazovkin kinetic estimation method for pig slurry digestate and milk thistle (DOCX 104 kb)

12649_2019_873_MOESM3_ESM.docx

ESM_3: Results of Ozawa-Flynn-Wall (Doyle’s approximation) and Vyazovkin kinetic estimation method for blends of pig slurry digestate and milk thistle (DOCX 238 kb)

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González-Arias, J., Fernández, C., Rosas, J.G. et al. Integrating Anaerobic Digestion of Pig Slurry and Thermal Valorisation of Biomass. Waste Biomass Valor 11, 6125–6137 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12649-019-00873-w

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