Abstract
Tunisia is a country that suffers from energy demand problems and environmental matters. Thus, Tunisian authorities desire to encourage the development of renewable energy sources, especially from biological processes, like anaerobic digestion. Therefore, this study is focused on the evaluation of biogas and bio-methane yield from the co-digestion of three available and abundant bio-wastes in the southern regions of Tunisia. The three different raw materials are an organic fraction of municipal solid waste, chicken manure, and olive mill wastewater. In this context, experimental work to evaluate the potential of biogas and bio-methane production was carried out at mesophilic temperature 35 °C and batch mode. The present work highlights the possibility of generating biogas from these organic wastes and reducing the amounts of the wastes to dispose of in landfills. The experimental study of the co-digestion process under specific conditions of carbon to nitrogen ratio (C/N), T, pH, and inoculums to substrate ratio ISR provided a high yield of net methane and net biogas, in comparison with other research works. Results showed a higher specific net methane production per kg of volatile solids, which is equal to 0.338 Nm3 methane/kg VS and 0.430 Nm3 methane/kg VS for two studied cases. The obtained volatile solids reduction was found to be 91% of the initial content, for a hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 40 days.
Highlights
Fossil fuels still have an important role in energy production for the great part of human, agricultural, and industrial activities
Biogas can be converted in combined heat and power (CHP) plants into electricity and heat or upgraded to bio-methane, and injected into the gas network and used as a fuel for road transportation
Tunisia has been engaged in a renewable energy development program since the 2011 revolution, which brought an improvement in the power balance
Summary
Fossil fuels still have an important role in energy production for the great part of human, agricultural, and industrial activities. During the last decades of the 20th century, anaerobic digestion (AD) has become an important process to address environmental and energy concerns, and many recent studies reported that anaerobic digestion (AD) is an efficient alternative technology that combines bio-energy production with sustainable waste management It is increasing successful, due to the low cost of available feedstock, to the wide range of the possible uses of biogas (i.e., for fuel [4], electricity [5], and heating [6]), and to the need to alleviate the problems of global warming, energy security, and waste management [7]. The production of bio-energy in Tunisia, especially in southern regions, is possible by the valorization of the organic fraction of municipal wastes, especially household waste, poultry droppings, and olive mill wastewater
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