Abstract
Cattle manure is an agricultural residue, which could be used as source to produce methane in order to substitute fossil fuels. Nevertheless, in practice the handling of this slowly degradable substrate during anaerobic digestion is challenging. In this study, the influence of the pre-treatment of cattle manure with pressure-swing conditioning (PSC) on the methane production was investigated. Six variants of PSC (combinations of duration 5 min, 30 min, 60 min and temperature 160 °C, 190 °C) were examined with regards to methane yield in batch tests. PSC of cattle manure showed a significant increase up to 109% in the methane yield compared to the untreated sample. Kinetic calculations proved also an enhancement of the degradation speed. One PSC-variant (190 °C/30 min) and untreated cattle manure were chosen for comparative fermentation tests in continuously stirred tank reactors (CSTR) in lab-scale with duplicates. In the continuous test a biogas production of 428 mL/g volatile solids (VS) (54.2% methane) for untreated manure was observed and of 456 mL/g VS (53.7% methane) for PSC-cattle-manure (190 °C/30 min). Significant tests were conducted for methane yields of all fermentation tests. Furthermore, other parameters such as furfural were investigated and discussed.
Highlights
Germany is the country leading by far in the primary production of biogas in European Union with 7852.4 ktoe in 2015, compared to United Kingdom with 2252.4 ktoe and Italy with 1871.5 ktoe biogasbarometer [1]
During the biochemical methane potential (BMP) test of pressure-swing conditioning (PSC) treatment of cattle manure, the methane yield increased by a minimum
12% and maximum 109% compared to the untreated reference; 160 ◦ C/60 min and 190 ◦ C/30 min showed the highest methane yields
Summary
Germany is the country leading by far in the primary production of biogas in European Union with 7852.4 ktoe in 2015, compared to United Kingdom with 2252.4 ktoe and Italy with 1871.5 ktoe biogasbarometer [1]. In 2016, approximately 8535 biogas plants fed with excrement and energy crops, biowaste or organic waste produced biogas in Germany (Daniel-Gromke, 2018) [2]. In contrast to other countries, the biogas is produced in landfills and sewage treatment plants in Germany [1], but mainly in the agricultural sector with energy crops and excrement as feedstock One of several reasons is the logistical challenge because the potentials are spread over a large number of farms (Scheftelowitz and Thrän, 2016) [3]. Another technical challenge is the handling of solid manure in practice and its slow degradation speed in anaerobic digestion. Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions could be saved by manure management via biogas generation as well as by substituting fossil fuels by biogas (Scheftelowitz and Thrän, 2016) [3]
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