Bio-methane production from tomato pomace: preliminary evaluation of process intensification through ultrasound pre-trea
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Bio‑methane production from tomato pomace: preliminary evaluation of process intensification through ultrasound pre‑treatment Francesca Girotto1 · Maria Cristina Lavagnolo2 · Gulgun Acar2 · Laura Piazza1 Received: 18 July 2020 / Accepted: 18 September 2020 © Springer Japan KK, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract The effect of ultrasound pre-treatment (for 5, 15, and 30 min) on tomato pomace methane yield was evaluated. With respect to the control (238.0 m3CH4/tVS), no improvement was recorded for the substrates pre-treated at 80 µm (0.6 W/mL). 18.9% and 5% higher methane yields were, instead, recorded from the substrate pre-treated for 15 min with an ultrasound wave’s amplitude of 152 µm (0.9 W/mL) after 4 and 22 days of AD, respectively. However, the main achievement arising from the ultrasound application at 152 µm amplitude was the degradation kinetics speed up (89.7% faster maximum methane production rate after 15 min US). Nonetheless, the methane yield increase was not high enough as to compensate the electricity requirement of ultrasonication (between 3.3 and 19.5 MJ/kgVS) as verified through the energy assessment. The dataset that has been presented and discussed lead to preliminary considerations that may be useful in view of a possible scale-up of the process. When equipoising higher quantities of treated biomass and recovered methane, the process might turn economically convenient; however a new energy feasibility assessment and capex–opex evaluation would be required. Keywords Tomato pomace · Ultrasounds · Anaerobic digestion · Bio-methane · Energy assessment
Introduction More than 182 million tons tomatoes were produced worldwide in 2017 [1]. When processed, tomato pulp is typically separated from skins and seeds whose combination is known as pomace (4–13% of the fruit weight) [2, 3]. With a high seasonality linked to the harvest period in different world areas, between 3 and 6 million tons of tomato pomace are generated every year [2, 4].
* Francesca Girotto [email protected] Maria Cristina Lavagnolo [email protected] Gulgun Acar [email protected] Laura Piazza [email protected] 1
Department of Environmental Science and Policy, Università Degli Studi Di Milano, Via Celoria 2, 20133 Milano, Italy
Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, University of Padova, Via Marzolo 9, 35131 Padova, Italy
2
Different are the biorefinery approaches to make use of this waste as a resource: animal feed, high added-value chemicals (lycopene, lutein, β- and cis-β-carotenoids) and polysaccharides source. A sustainable solution to exploit large volumes of pomace is through energy recovery processes such as anaerobic digestion (AD) [5–7]. In fact, tomato pomace production is highly seasonal but it is possible to ensile it to spread its use over time within a digester. The scientific community is constantly facing the challenge of energy recovery intensification especially through waste biomass pre-treatment. Focusing on tomato pomace, a
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