Closing the Global Energy and Nutrient Cycles through Application of Biogas Residue to Agricultural Land – Potential Benefits and Drawback

Arthurson, Veronica

doi:10.3390/en20200226

Cited by 242 publications

(148 citation statements)

References 95 publications

(113 reference statements)

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“…An important but little understood aspect of biogas production is its overall impact on soil C and N cycling. Increased biogas production from organic waste will inevitably lead to higher input of its digestate to the soil amendments as fertilizers (Arthurson, 2009). Möller and Stinner (2009) showed that N 2 O-N emissions increase remarkably after shallow injection of slurry in closed slots, particularly if digested slurry was applied.…”

Section: Soil Amendment Of Digestatementioning

confidence: 99%

Decentralized Biogas Technology of Anaerobic Digestion and Farm Ecosystem: Opportunities and Challenges

Wang

2014

Front. Energy Res.

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Long-term economic and environmental concerns have resulted in a great amount of research on renewable sources of biomass and bioenergy to replace fossil fuels in the past decades. Decentralized biogas technology is one of the most potential technologies of biomass and bioenergy by using agricultural waste materials (e.g., animal manure, crop straw, and by-products from food industries) as feedstocks. By-products from biogas production, called digestate, are nutrient rich, which could potentially be reused as green fertilizers in agriculture, thereby providing a sustainable substitute for synthetic fertilizers for farm ecosystem. Thus, the biogas production of anaerobic digestion is win-win option for livestock and crop producers to address issues of waste management and energy supply, and to avoid contamination of surface and ground waters and emissions of odors and greenhouse gases. In this paper, we review biogas production technology and then evaluate environmental effects of digestate used as fertilizer. Finally, we discuss issues of deployment of decentralized biogas technology for farm ecosystem. Economic and technological barriers still exist for large scale deployment of biogas technology in rural region. Two national scale deployments in China and Nepal showed that the operational status of biogas digesters is not optimal and up to 50% of plants are non-functional after a short operation period regardless of the social and economic factors. Main barriers are a wide variation of feedstocks and environmental conditions (e.g., temperature) over space and time. It becomes clear that the experimental conditions of the pilot plants need to be adjusted and calibrated to the local feedstocks and climate. Also, more research needs to be done in cold fermentation technology. Thus, collaboration of all relevant designers, farmers, stakeholders, and regulators is proposed as the way forward, particularly as their complexity has been identified as the major hurdle to the implementation of decentralized biogas production, which can deliver beneficial synergies for the decentralized biogas production in rural region responsible for food production and waste management.

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Section: Soil Amendment Of Digestatementioning

confidence: 99%

Decentralized Biogas Technology of Anaerobic Digestion and Farm Ecosystem: Opportunities and Challenges

Wang

2014

Front. Energy Res.

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“…Field and pot trials to date report positive effects of digestate application to arable land in terms of yields (Stinner et al 2008, Arthurson 2009, Gunnarsson et al 2010 or no significant effects (Ross et al 1989, Bath andElfstrand 2008). Literature on the application of digestates as fertilisers for vegetables is very scarce.…”

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confidence: 99%

The effect of fertilisation with digestate on kohlrabi yields and quality

Lošák¹,

Hlušek²,

Válka³

et al. 2016

PLANT SOIL ENVIRON

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The number of biogas stations in the Czech Republic has recently increased considerably; as of 1 January 2014 some 500 biogas plants were registered of which 378 are agricultural biogas plants with installed electric energy of 392 MW. The estimated annual digestate production ranges around 7.9 mil t and the biogas stations are deployed irregularly in the regions. On that account practical problems frequently arise how to utilise the digestate effectively and/or where to apply it (in compliance with legislation -for example: The Nitrates Directive and Restrictions in the Vulnerable Areas). Considering the fact that digestate is produced during the whole year, possibilities are being sought of using it not only to fertilise arable crops but also vegetables. Whereas information on using digestate to fertilise arable crops is relatively abundant, in the case of vegetables it is vice versa (Dostál et al. 2015).Manures from stables, crop residues, wastes from the food industry, municipal wastes, and dedicated energy crops are the main feedstocks for anaerobic digestion (AD) in biogas plants. The residual product of AD, called digestate (= biogas effluents = biogas residues, or biogas slurry, when animal manures are digested), is usually used as (1) untreated control; (2) digestate; (3) digestate + phosphorus (P). The nitrogen (N) rate was the same in treatments 2-3. There were significant differences between years in all parameters. The weight of single kohlrabi bulbs in the unfertilised control was significantly lower in both years (33.1-46.9%) than in the digestate treatment (100%). Digestate supplemented with P (treatment 3) increased the bulb yield significantly by 11.0-14.3% compared with pure digestate (treatment 2). In both years the content of bulb nitrates (mg NO 3 -/kg FM (fresh matter)) was significantly the lowest in the unfertilised control (135 and 163, respectively). After digestate applications the nitrates content (mg NO 3 -/kg FM) increased significantly in both years, i.e. to 315-327 (2014) and to 486-509 (2015) compared to unfertilised control. In two years the content of ascorbic acid (mg/kg FM) did not differ among the three treatments (274-288 in 2014 and 311-329 in 2015). Digestates can be recommended for kohlrabi fertilisation prior to planting.

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“…Mineralization of macromolecules by anaerobic digestion (Moller and Muller, 2012 which also play a vital role in determining the suitability of a digestate as a fertilizer (Alburquerque et al, 2012). Studies have shown that anaerobic digestates can potentially benefit crop growth as well as nitrogen uptake, although careful monitoring is necessary to ensure a constant soil quality in the early stages (Arthurson, 2009). In this study, a nutrient recycling strategy was tested for the cultivation of Scenedesmus acutus, which has been selected as a candidate for large scale CO 2 mitigation and as a feedstock for anaerobic digestion and biodiesel production due to its high growth rate, hardiness, and oil content Shin et al, 2014;and Wilson et al, 2014).…”

Section: -7012/2016/8(1)/013116/14mentioning

confidence: 99%

Application of recycled media and algae-based anaerobic digestate in Scenedesmus cultivation

Xinyi

Crofcheck

Crocker

2016

Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy

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To make large-algae cultivation systems sustainable, commercial fertilizer inputs should be minimized. One means of achieving this is to maximize the recycle of nutrients used in algae cultivation. In addition to recycling nutrient-containing water from algae harvesting and dewatering, after harvesting algal biomass can be used as a substrate for anaerobic digestion, which can then generate mineralized nutrients to be used for further cultivation. In this study, the effect of recycling media and using mineralized nutrients during Scenedesmus cultivation was investigated. The recycled media proved to be able to support cell growth with nutrient replenishment, and it could be recycled for cultivation up to four times. Algae biomass was subjected to anaerobic digestion, and the liquid digestate and the total digestate were tested as nutrient sources. The digestate was rich in ammonium ions and proved to be a sufficient replacement for urea. When both urea and ammonium ions were available in the media, the assimilation of urea by algal cells slowed down compared to the case where urea was the only nitrogen source.

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Closing the Global Energy and Nutrient Cycles through Application of Biogas Residue to Agricultural Land – Potential Benefits and Drawback

Cited by 242 publications

References 95 publications

Decentralized Biogas Technology of Anaerobic Digestion and Farm Ecosystem: Opportunities and Challenges

Decentralized Biogas Technology of Anaerobic Digestion and Farm Ecosystem: Opportunities and Challenges

The effect of fertilisation with digestate on kohlrabi yields and quality

Application of recycled media and algae-based anaerobic digestate in Scenedesmus cultivation

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