Biorefineries at poultry farms: a perspective for sustainable development

Abstract

Poultry litter (PL) is one of the drier and bulkier manures produced in intensive agriculture. Land spreading is considered the most common treatment option for PL; however, this causes large atmospheric greenhouse emissions and consequently a high negative environmental impact. PL has several factors that limit its sustainable use as an energy source, and thus there is still a need for more studies about sustainable waste management. The paper aims at: (i) proposing sustainable pathways in order to maximise the PL valorisation process, based on previous experiences described in the literature; and (ii) showing the advantages of reforming poultry farms into biorefineries in Cuba. Combinations of techniques are used to increase PL valorisation, but only by modulating the theoretical data has an improvement occurred. In this work, pathways for thermo‐ and bioconversion processes are proposed which involve four major technologies for converting PL into useful energy and fertiliser, being pyrolysis/gasification, hydrothermal carbonisation and anaerobic digestion as key conversion technologies. Including technologies for nutrient recovery in the proposed pathways would allow better agricultural applications. The treatment of PL in biorefineries in Cuba would have a positive impact on the economy through income generation and savings resulting from reductions in imports (i.e. fossil fuels and agrochemicals), employment creation, improved living conditions and development in rural communities. Future studies should be aimed at evaluating the various proposed pathways in order to maximise the PL valorisation process, in addition to a marketing study of the products generated through the biorefineries at poultry farms. © 2020 Society of Chemical Industry (SCI)

Fluidised bed gasification of biomasses and wastes to produce hydrogen‐rich syn‐gas – a review

“…33 FB gasifiers (in either bubbling or circulating mode) permit the use of various distributions of particle size (generally, lower than 6 mm; while EF systems require particles finer than 0.1 mm), with a wide possible range in terms of quality of the input solid fuel (biomass), a feature not presented by EF gasifiers; the FB gasifier operating temperature falls in the range 700-1200 °C (for EF, up to 1600 °C), with fast heating and good carbon conversion efficiency (ca 95%; in EF gasifiers it can reach almost 100%); the mean residence time of solid particles is in the range 10-100 s, about an order of magnitude longer than that found in EF gasifiers; FB gasifiers of capacity from 20 up to 700 MW th have been conceived, values in line with the thermal capacity of EF reactors; finally, dry ash is collected from FB installations, while in EF systems we have a molten ash slag (due to the higher operating temperature) that may have high corrosion potential. [19][20][21][34][35][36] Of course, the issues inherent in the use of FB gasifiers must not be omitted and must be carefully controlled: possible bed agglomeration, particle attrition/fragmentation/elutriation, corrosion/erosion of internal parts, to name a few.…”

Common Driving Forces of Provincial-Level Greenhouse Gas and Air Pollutant Emissions in China

“…3 For instance, fossil fuel consumption emits CO 2 , SO 2 , and NO x simultaneously, while animals generate methane (CH 4 ) and ammonia (NH 3 ). 4,5 Thus, co-controlling GHGs and pollutants may offset mitigation costs substantially. 6 The key to cocontrolling these is discerning their common driving forces, which this study intends to do.…”

Gasification of Biowaste Based on Validated Computational Simulations: A Circular Economy Model to Handle Poultry Litter Waste

“…Jeswani [14] found out through a Life Cycle Assessment analysis that PL gasification had a lower impact in 14 out of 16 categories considered when comparing to fossil fuel alternatives, and Perondi [15] researched the potential of natural catalysts to increase gas yields. Other thermochemical conversion methods for PL researched include pyrolysis [16] and hydrothermal carbonisation and anaerobic digestion [17]. However, as discussed in [18] there is potential in using small scale (< 250 kW) gasification units for onsite heat and electricity production in poultry farms.…”