engleski

Research of biogas production in laboratory and pilot scale in order to develop the treatment process of brewery waste streams

Municipal waste, waste water, food and fermentation industry waste, sludges from wastewater treatment plants and animal manure is type of waste which contains a significant amount of organic matter. Organic matter in solid and liquid waste streams is a valuable material for biogas production and thus represents a renewable energy source. Although the anaerobic digestion process is significantly researched, and for some substrates and mixtures of substrates there are commercially available technologies, the degradation of the substrates with large lignin, cellulose and hemicellulose content is subject of current researches in order to improve exisiting processes and develop new technologies. This paper presents preliminary studies of biogas production from brewery industry waste streams, with a focus on treatment of brewery spent grain as main substrate, for which there are no commercially available technologies. The anaerobic digestion process is implemented in laboratory and pilot scale for faster and cheaper process transfer into industrial scale. Researches and process optimization in these two scales are an important step for the design of industrial scale technology and are also key findings for the development of environmentally and economically sustainable systems. Besides that, the equivalent tests in laboratory scale and at pilot plant can help us optimize existing operational processes, or it is possible to detect points that significantly increase operational costs of existing processes. By applying the complete research results, of which in this paper was presented only a part, brewery Laško will be able to create a sustainable system for waste management, which will generate economic benefits and it will get the energy (heat) from biogas, which will be directly returned to the production process.

laboratory; pilot plant; anaerobic digestion; brewer’s spent grain (BSG)

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