Indicators, such as the energy balance (EB) and greenhouse gases emissions avoided (GHGEA), are frequently used to evaluate the benefits and sustainability of biofuels. Many important papers and reports have been published in recent years to demonstrate the environmental and energetic benefits of biofuels, such as ethanol from sugar cane. EB and GHGEA often include other sugar cane products, such as electricity and bagasse. The anaerobic digestion of vinasse can generate considerable amounts of biogas but is not a common practice in Brazil. This study evaluates the potential benefits to the EB and GHGEA of ethanol by the production of biogas from vinasse and its use to produce electricity or biomethane. Biomethane can be injected on the Natural Gas Grid or used as a fossil diesel oil replacement in the mill operations of harvesting and transportation of sugar cane. The results show that biogas from vinasse can represent improvement in both indicators, which ranges from 3.5% improvement in EB by electricity generation with biogas to 27.5% improvement in GHGEA by replacing diesel in the mill operations. © 2019 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog,39:e13226, 2020

In this paper, we present extensions to the Anaerobic Digestion Model No. 1 (ADM1) to simulate hydrogen sulphide in biogas and solids retention efficiency. The extended model was calibrated and validated against data from a large-scale covered in-ground anaerobic reactor (CIGAR), processing sugarcane vinasse. Comparative scenarios and set-ups of a CIGAR with and without a settling tank unit (settler) were simulated to investigate the reactor's performance. Biogas flow, methane content, and yield with settler were 15,983 Nm3/d, 57%, and 0.198 Nm3CH4/kgCOD, respectively, which were 9.4%, 1.8%, and 11.64%, higher than without the settler. Improvements are combination of influent flow rate 116% higher and increased solids retention time by using a settler. The optimised modelled reactor, the volume of which was reduced by 50%, was able to produce 83% more methane per volume of reactor with half the retention time. After model calibration and validation, we assessed the quality of predictions and its utility. The overall quality of predictions was assessed as high accuracy quantitative for CH4 and medium for H2S and biogas flow. A practical demonstration of ADM1 to industrial application is presented here to identify the potential optimisation and behaviour of a large-scale anaerobic reactor, reducing, consequently, expenditure, risk, and time.