Scientists at the University of Debrecen (Hungary) recently published an article regarding the feedstock recipe design to enhance the biogas production of a local biogas plant (Optimization of Raw Material Composition in an Agricultural Biogas Plant, DOI: 10.17737/tre.2017.3.1.0031). Authors emphasized that, from the perspective of greenhouse gas emissions, biogas production from energy crop is preferred and has the lowest carbon dioxide emission. Meanwhile, the construction and operation of a biogas plant is a combination of economic and technical considerations. It is thus important to ensure a stable and continuous supply of feedstock with suitable quality and quantities. Feedstock conditioning offers the significant potential for process optimization, and increases digestion rates and biogas yields.
For this purpose, they analyzed the performance of a local biogas plant during last 3 years and developed a linear program model to predict the recipes’ potential reserves and the level of heterosis effect. They concluded that biogas plants serving for disposal of the slurry from livestock farms have relatively modest possibilities for increasing yield, since they are scaled for constantly processing hardly storable raw materials with modest biogas yields. However, optimization of this kind of feedstocks is still possible, for example, the use of the high organic-content materials like energy crops, silage maize, and grass silage.
Contact: Dr. habil Bai Attila, Email: bai.attila@econ.unideb.hu
More information: http://dx.doi.org/10.17737/tre.2017.3.1.0031