A Multiproduct Biorefinery Approach for the Production of Hydrogen, Methane and Volatile Fatty Acids from Agricultural W
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ORIGINAL PAPER
A Multiproduct Biorefinery Approach for the Production of Hydrogen, Methane and Volatile Fatty Acids from Agricultural Waste Edoardo Righetti1 · Simone Nortilli1 · Francesco Fatone1,2 · Nicola Frison1,3 · David Bolzonella1,3 Received: 15 November 2019 / Accepted: 16 March 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract A pilot scale biorefinery platform for the treatment of agro-waste and the production of hydrogen, methane and volatile fatty acids was studied in real environment. The system adopted was a two stage anaerobic process where hydrogen and volatile fatty acids were produced in the first phase (fermentation) and methane in the second one (digestion). The study demonstrated the possibility to produce a biogas composed by hydrogen and methane (10% and 55%, respectively) while recovering volatile fatty acids. The yield for acids production was equivalent to 0.13 gVFA/gTVS (as COD) with acetate and butyrate as dominant observed species. Graphic Abstract
Keywords Circular economy · Bio-economy · Agricultural waste · Polyhydroxyalkanoates · Volatile fatty acids · Bioresource recovery
Statement of Novelty * Edoardo Righetti [email protected] * Simone Nortilli [email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article
The bioeconomy approach requests for multi-feedstock and multi-purpose biorefinery platforms where agro-waste are valorised via the production of biobased products. In this paper we present the results deriving from a large pilot scale
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Waste and Biomass Valorization
study where the conventional anaerobic digestion process was modified into a two-step process for the concurrent production of hydrogen volatile fatty acids and methane from cattle manure and grass silage.
the same bioprocess: 2 years of studies demonstrated the reliability and robustness of the proposed approach.
Introduction
The experimental activity took place in a pilot scale platform hosted at “La Torre” farm nearby a full-scale anaerobic digestion plant located in Isola della Scala, Verona, northeast Italy, which treats around 150 tons per day of agricultural waste in two anaerobic digesters with a size of 1 MW each one. Figure 1 shows a graphical sketch of the general approach proposed: here livestock effluents and grass silage are transformed into biofuels and biobased products like VFAs or PHA.
The agricultural wastes represent nowadays a consistent amount of the waste generated in EU achieving at least 50% of the fresh harvested crops [1]. In this scenario, the Circular Economy and the Bio-economy concepts intersect in their common aims to add value to biological waste and residues [2] through the smart management of agro-waste and their conversion into biobased products and biofuels avoiding harmful consequences on soils, water and air quality [3]. These agro-waste are mainly animal and vegetal residues which cannot be further processed into food or feed and need some kind of treatment to reduce their environmental burden. These materials
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