Material Characterization and Substrate Suitability Assessment of Chicken Manure for Dry Batch Anaerobic Digestion Processes

Abstract

Chicken manure is an agricultural residue material with a high biomass potential. The energetical utilization of this feedstock via anaerobic digestion is an interesting waste treatment option. One waste treatment technology most appropriate for the treatment of stackable (non-free-flowing) dry organic waste materials is the dry batch anaerobic digestion process. The aim of this study was to evaluate the substrate suitability of chicken manure from various sources as feedstock for percolation processes. Chicken manure samples from different housing forms were investigated for their chemical and physical material properties, such as feedstock composition, permeability under compaction and material compressibility. The permeability under compaction of chicken manure ranged from impermeable to sufficiently permeable depending on the type of chicken housing, manure age and bedding material used. Porous materials, such as straw and woodchips, were successfully tested as substrate additives with the ability to enhance material mixture properties to yield superior permeability and allow sufficient percolation. In dry anaerobic batch digestion trials at lab scale, the biogas generation of chicken manure with and without any structure material addition was investigated. Digestion trials were carried out without solid inoculum addition and secondary methanization of volatile components. The specific methane yield of dry chicken manure was measured and found to be 120 to 145 mL/g volatile solids (VS) and 70 to 75 mL/g fresh matter (FM), which represents approximately 70% of the methane potential based on fresh mass of common energy crops, such as corn silage.

Ensiling of Invasive Elodea sp., a Novel Aquatic Biomass Feedstock for the Sustainable Biogas Production: Effects of Wheat Straw and Silage Additives on Silage Quality and Methane Production

“…We estimated model parameters from eqs 1 and 2 and their uncertainties using the negative logarithm of the likelihood LL (eq 3) as the objective function with constant error variance (3) where n is the total number of experimental data, i is an index, B i obs represents the observed cumulative methane production at time t, B i est represents the estimated cumulative methane production calculated with eqs 1 and 2, and σ is the standard error. Model selection for the best fit to observed data was conducted using the Akaike information criterion (AIC) as described in eq 4 (4) where L max is the maximum likelihood and P is the number of parameters included in the model. Parameter estimation and their uncertainties were carried out using the subroutine "optim" from the statistical package R (R core team 2018).…”

“…3 In addition, AD is considered an efficient waste management practice applied to a wide variety of biodegradable materials. 4 Biogas consists mostly of CH 4 and CO 2 , and CH 4 can be integrated into the energy sector with possible uses such as heating and energy generation. However, due to Elodea biomass seasonality and its characteristics, availability throughout the year is one of the obvious challenges of CH 4 production from commercial AD.…”

“…In this context, Elodea biomass can be a natural and potential feedstock resource for providing renewable energy, and anaerobic digestion (AD) presents a particularly promising approach to such biomass to generate biogas . In addition, AD is considered an efficient waste management practice applied to a wide variety of biodegradable materials . Biogas consists mostly of CH 4 and CO 2 , and CH 4 can be integrated into the energy sector with possible uses such as heating and energy generation.…”

Anaerobic Digestion for Producing Renewable Energy—The Evolution of This Technology in a New Uncertain Scenario

“…Industrial plants already have installed pre-treatment equipment to remove inert material, glass and grit, especially when wet-treatment technology is used, to prevent damaging pumps, clogging and avoid extremely high maintenance costs [ 135 ]. Dry digestion technologies are capable of managing a greater amount of inert materials, but many of these processes operate under batch conditions and may present lower yields due to the excessive accumulation of ammonia in the lixiviate, particularly if chicken or poultry manure is treated [ 90 , 136 , 137 ].…”

Anaerobic Digestion in the 21st Century

“…extended to waste products either rich in recalcitrant lignocellulose or containing inhibitory substances such as ammonia (see the studies of Wedwitschka et al [5] and Mahato et al [6] in this Special Issue). The development and evaluation of various pretreatment technologies for lignocellulosic biomass is a hot topic of AD research that several articles in this Special Issue deal with (see the studies of Müller et al [7], Schumacher et al [8], and Monlau et al [9]).…”