O processo produtivo do couro leva à geração de resíduos sólidos que, por não possuírem boas características de utilização, acabam sendo dispostos em Aterros de Resíduos Industriais Perigosos (ARIP). Por ação microbiológica são degradados lentamente e produzem chorume e biogás (CH4 e CO2), o que pode se prolongar por muitos anos e há necessidade de monitoramento contínuo. Estes resíduos sólidos são em sua maioria farelo de couro wet-blue, um resíduo cromado originário da operação de rebaixamento para padronização e ajuste da espessura de couros, além dos lodos cromados provenientes das estações de tratamento de efluentes dos curtumes. O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar a produção de biogás por resíduos de curtume (farelo de rebaixamento e lodo biológico de ETE de curtume), o efeito do tratamento enzimático do farelo de rebaixamento para acelerar sua decomposição e aumentar a produção de biogás e, realizar um levantamento das condições (construção e operação) de ARIPs localizados nas proximidades de Porto Alegre. Os estudos sobre produção de biogás foram avaliados através da realização de experimentos em biorreatores de bacada, utilizando colágeno, farelo de couro wet-blue e lodo com cromo do tratamento biológico de ETE de curtume (inóculo). A avaliação do volume de biogás gerado foi realizada com a utilização de um frasco tipo Mariotte. A composição de metano, dióxido de carbono, oxigênio e nitrogênio foi determinada através de cromatografia gasosa. Os materiais utilizados foram caracterizados quanto ao seu teor de umidade, cinzas, cromo e nitrogênio, e os materiais após o experimento finalizado foram filtrados e caracterizados em relação à massa residual, teor de cromo e nitrogênio. Na primeira série de experimentos foi realizado o prétratamento enzimático térmico para hidrólise do colágeno e resultou em um aumento de 78,3% na produção de biogás e de 76,5% de metano em relação ao colágeno não tratado, porém, a enzima ativa em contato com o inóculo retardou o início da geração de biogás em no mínimo 14 dias. Assim, a inativação da enzima após o tratamento de hidrólise, através de um choque térmico, foi aplicada nos seguintes experimentos utilizando farelo do rebaixamento de couro wet-blue como substrato, resultando para o pré-tratamento enzimático térmico um aumento de 58% na produção de biogás e de 62,4% na produção de metano em relação ao farelo não tratado. Na terceira série de experimentos utilizando somente lodo, foi observado que conforme a quantidade de lodo utilizado é aumentada, o volume de biogás produzido também aumenta. A avaliação do levantamento dos ARIPs foi realizada através da elaboração e aplicação de um questionário com 23 perguntas, a pesquisa mostrou que todos estão em conformidade com a norma brasileira ABNT NBR 10.157/87, que o tipo de resíduo disposto afeta diretamento a produção de chorume e, que tem havido redução da disposição de resíduos de couro wet-blue. / The leather production process leads to generation of solid waste that by not having good characteristics for use, end up disposed of in Hazardous Industrial Waste Landfills (HIWLs). Through microbiological action it’s slowly degraded and produce leachate and biogas (CH4 and CO2), which can last several years and requires continuous monitoring. These solid wastes are mostly wet-blue leather shaving, a chromed waste from the operation of standardizing and to adjust the thickness of the leather, besides the chromed sludge from the effluent treatment system of tanneries. The aim of this study was to evaluate the production of biogas by tannery waste (wet-blue leather shavings and biological sludge from tannery’s WWTP), the effect of enzymatic treatment of the wet-blue leather shavings to accelerate its decomposition and increase biogas production, and conduct the survey about conditions (construction and operational) of HIWLs located near Porto Alegre. Studies on biogas production were evaluated by conducting experiments on bench top bioreactors using collagen, wet-blue leather shavings, chromed sludge from biological treatment of tannery’s WWTP and inoculum. The evaluation of the volume of biogas produced was performed using a Mariotte flask type. The composition of methane, carbon dioxide, nitrogen and oxygen was determined by gas chromatography. The materials used were characterized regarding its moisturet, ash, chromium and nitrogen content, and the materials of the finished experiment were filtered and characterized in relation to the residual mass, chromium and nitrogen content. The first series of experiments carried out the thermal enzymatic pretreatment for hydrolysis of collagen and resulted in a 78.3% increase in biogas production and 76.5% of methane compared to untreated collagen, however, the active enzyme in contact with the inoculum delayed the beginning of biogas generation at least 14 days. Thus, inactivation of the enzyme after hydrolisis treatment, by a heat shock, was applied in the following experiments using wet-blue leather shavings as the substrate, resulting for the thermal enzymatic pretreatment an increase of 58% in the production of biogas and 62.4% in the production of methane compared to untreated leather. In the third series of experiments using only sludge it was observed that as the amount of sludge used increased, the volume of biogas also increased. The evaluation of HIWLs survey was conducted through the development and application of a questionnaire with 23 questions, the survey showed that all are in accordance with the Brazilian standard ABNT NBR 10.157/87, the type of waste disposed directly affects leachate production and there has been a large reduction of disposal of wet-blue leather wastes.

Content: Leather goods are noble and sustainable but leather production may bear a potential for pollution. During leather manufacture high amounts of chromium shavings, wet by-products of the leather industry, are produced worldwide. Due to their chromium content they are disposed in landfill sites worldwide leading to long lasting environmental problems. They are stable towards temperatures of up to 110 °C and enzymatic degradation, preventing anaerobic digestion in a biogas plant. This stability is due to the three-dimensional native structure, typical for collagen, and additional chemical cross-links between the collagen fibers achieved by Cr3+ salts in the tanning step in tanneries. Therefore, hitherto chromium shavings are not utilized industrially to produce biogas. In order to ease enzymatic degradation, necessary to produce biogas, a previous denaturation of the native structure has to be carried out. Otherwise, the generation of biogas is hindered. In our projects, shavings were pre-treated thermally and mechanically by extrusion and hydrothermal methods. In previous works, we studied intensively the use of these shavings to produce biogas in batch scale and significant improvement was reached when using pre-treated shavings. In this work, a scale-up of the process was performed in a continuous reactor using pre-treated and untreated shavings to examine the feasibility of the considered method. Measuring different parameters along the anaerobic digestion, namely organic matter and volatile fatty acids content, it was possible to show that a higher loading rate can be used when feeding the reactor with pre-treated shavings instead of untreated shavings, which means a more economical process in an industrial scenario. Take-Away: The use of a pre-treatment improves the biogas production from chromium shavings

Das Landesamt für Umwelt, Landwirtschaft und Geologie untersuchte auf einem D-Südstandort in der Dübener Heide acht verschiedene Fruchtfolgen mit Energiepflanzen zur Biogasproduktion. Untersucht wurde die Ertrags- und Biogasleistung. Für die Region wird empfohlen, den Anbau in fünfgliedrigen Fruchtfolgen vorzunehmen. Als ertragsstarke und ertragsstabile Energiepflanzen haben sich dabei Energiemais, Sudangras, Zuckerhirse und Kartoffeln bewährt. Sie sollten zu 30 bis maximal 60 % in der Fruchtfolge berücksichtigt werden. Von ökologischem (Humushaushalt) und ökonomischem Vorteil ist dabei der Aufbau von Fruchtfolgesystemen, die sowohl leistungsstarke Energiepflanzen als auch Nahrungspflanzen enthalten. Die leistungsfähigsten Fruchtfolgevarianten erreichen kumulative Trockenmasseerträge von 370 bis zu 430 dt TM/ha. Theoretische Methanleistungen von insgesamt 12.000 m³ Methan/ha sind möglich.

Die Ausgabe der Schriftenreihe veröffentlicht Ergebnisse von Anbauversuchen mit Mais- und Sorghumhirsesorten. In einem bundesländerübergreifenden Projekt wurden unter repräsentativen Standortbedingungen die Ertragsleistungen verschiedener Sorten untersucht. Die ertragsreichen Sorghumhirsesorten Goliath, Sucrosorgo 506 und Lussi erreichten auf Lössboden etwa 85 Prozent des Maisertrages, der mit 180 dt TM/ha die höchsten Erträge erzielte. Auf diluvialen Böden und auf Kippenböden waren die Sorghumsorten teilweise bis zu 10 Prozent im Ertrag überlegen. Die Optimierung von Saatstärke und Reihenweite erbrachte standortbezogene Ertragssteigerungen bis 10 Prozent.

The disposal of large amounts of waste still containing energetic value is a central challenge in the waste management of the Brazilian sugarcane industry. As a sustainable solution, the biogas process appears to be a suitable technology for treating sugarcane waste products and for providing valuable commodities such as energy-rich biogas and digestate with fertilizer properties. Additionally, the proper treatment of the four major waste types (straw, bagasse, filter cake and vinasse) would avoid greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution and environmental contamination of soil and water. In order to investigate the feasibility and reliability of biogas production from sugarcane wastes, the microbial community dynamics of laboratory-scale reactors were assessed under different start-up strategies. Despite the promising results of the methane potential for all the waste products, chemical and physical pre-treatments were applied successfully to increase the methane yield of straw, bagasse and filter cake. The microbial community dynamics observed during co-digestion of filter cake and bagasse showed, together with the process parameters, that cattle manure can be effectively used as an inoculum for the start-up of a biogas process in the remote-located sugarcane industry. Monitoring methanogenic community dynamics at high organic loading rate of filter cake and bagasse demonstrated that the genera Methanosarcina and Methanobacterium are the major methanogens that produce biogas, even under process imbalances. Moreover, the results obtained from the process parameters and methanogenic community analyses revealed that the stable isotope fingerprinting technique may be a potential monitoring tool for quickly identifying changes in the methanogenic pathway, which indicates process disturbances. In conclusion, these studies established techniques for the efficient substrate processing and start-up procedure of a biogas process designed for the anaerobic digestion of sugarcane wastes, and by these means provided a highly detailed profile of the microbial community in relation to process parameters.

Sewage sludge is widely used as an important source for biogas production through digestion. Developing the high performance processes has a significant goal in order to promote energy efficiency and reduce the cost sewage sludge treatment. The problem of sewage sludge disposal is becoming top one which almost cost 50 % of running fee for a municipal wastewater treatment plant. This paper basically introduces three methods to improve the conventional digestion. However, they enhance the conventional digestion from different aspects. For examples, Two-phase anaerobic digestion enables to exhibit the merit of thermophilic anaerobic digestion and avoid the weak points of conventional digestion regarding odor problem. In two-phase anaerobic digestion, the acid and methane producing stages are separated. Extended solids retention time is an approach to separate the hydraulic retention time and solids retention time in an anaerobic digester by using recycle thickening. This method could benefit further de-composing the organics and increase methane formation. Dewaterability is the final step of anaerobic digestion process. Enhancing this part of process is an efficient way to increase the solid content of sludge that would reduce the transportation costs. In a nutshell, no matter on saving cost or energy perspectives, these three methods all promote biogas production efficiency up to a better performance, but various requirement of energy and cost are demanded. The paper displays and compares the advantages and disadvantages among three methods. There is no certain answer to which method is the best one; however, they can be chose to enhance digestion in different condition.

Sewage sludge is treated with the biological process of anaerobic digestion in which organic material of a substrate is degraded by microorganisms in the absence of oxygen. The result of this degradation is biogas, a mixture mainly of methane and carbon dioxide. Biochemical Methane Potential tests are used to provide a measure of the anaerobic degradability of a given substrate. This study aims to determine the methane potential in Sjöstadsverket’s sludge this will moreover determine the viability of recycling the digested sludge back into the anaerobic system for further digestion. Batch digestion tests were performed in both Sjöstadsverket’s (S1) and Henriksdal’s (H2) sludge, for a reliable comparison. An inoculum to substrate ratio of 2:1 based on VS content was used and BMP tests presented results that S1 and H2 in the 20 days of incubation produced 0.29 NLCH4/gVS and 0.33 NLCH4/gVS respectively. A second experiment considering the same amount of substrate (200ml) and inoculum (200ml) for each sample, showed that Control S1 had a higher methane potential than Control H2, 0.31 NL/gVS and 0.29 NL/gVS respectively. All the samples containing Sjöstadsverket’s inoculum presented a higher volume of total accumulated gas (measured in Normal Liters), however methane potentials are low. Results demonstrated that methane production in samples S1 and Control S1 was originating from the grams of VS in the inoculum itself after depletion of all the soluble organic material in the substrate. This suggested that Sjöstadsverket’s sludge can endure a higher organic load rate and that the digested sludge still has potential to produce biogas, hence the recycling of this can enhance the biogas production in the digestion system.

The upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor is widely used around the world to treat variety of domestic andindustrial wastewater with three main advantages: production of biogas as renewable energy, no need of support structure for development of microorganisms and high rate treatment efficiency with low rate of biomass production. This study evaluates the effect of temperature on biogas production and CODtotal removal in Line 4-UASB system treating domestic wastewater in Hammarby Sjöstadsverk. Eight parameters were examined including the following: Influent and effluent temperature, pH, influent CODtotal, influent rate, effluent CODtotal, volatile fatty acids, biogas production rate and methane concentration. There are eight set temperature and each is stabilized for seven days. The biogas production analysis is focus on UASB 1. Temperature rising from 19°C to 35°C achieves a general benefit result in methane yield rate and CODtotal removal efficiency. The best methane yield rate and CODtotal removal rate are 0.167l/gCODtotal and 56.84% respectively at highest working temperature 33.4°C with OLR 3.072gCODtotal/(l*day) and HRT 4.2h. / Den ökande energiförbrukningen i världen och utsläpp av växthusgaser (GHG) gör det nödvändigt att söka nya hållbara energikällor för att matcha efterfrågan på energi i framtiden. Rötningsteknik med organiskt avfall som förnybar energikälla, ger biogas som i genomsnitt består av 78% CH4, 22% av CO2och spår av H2S (<0.5%), är en idealisk kostnadseffektiv metod. Den Uppåt flödande anaeroba slambäddsreaktorn(UASB) med största fördelarna: biogasproduktion som förnybar energi, hög belastning och hög behandlingseffektivitet med låg produktion av biomassa, inget behov av stödstruktur för utveckling av mikroorganismer, är den viktigaste typen för anaerobt reningssystem. Det finns flera faktorer som påverkar UASB-reaktorns prestanda, såsom temperatur, pH, HRT, Uppåtriktat flödeshastighet, OLR, SRT och VFA. I denna studie är huvudsyftet att med fokus på utvärdering av temperaturpåverkan på biogasproduktion och CODtotal avlägsnat i UASB-systemet Linje 4 som behandlar hushållsspillvatten i Hammarby Sjöstadsverk. Analysen avbiogasproduktionen fokuserades på UASB reaktor 1. Åtta parametrar övervakades för att kontrollera skick inklusive inflöde och utflöde, temperatur, pH, CODtotal inflöde, strömningshastighet för inflöde, CODtotal utflöde, flyktiga fettsyror VFA, biogasproduktionstakt och metankoncentration. Försöken utfördes vid åtta inställda temperaturnivåer och varje nivå stabiliserades i sju dagar. pH och VFA-värde var stabilt under hela försöket. Resultatetvisar att temperaturen har en större inverkan på metanavkastningen och CODtotal avlägsnat än belastningen, OLR. Då temperaturen höjs från 19°C till 35°C erhålls en större metanavkastning och större CODtotal avlägsnat. Den största metanavkastningen och CODtotal avlägsnat är 0,167l/g CODtotal respektive 56.84% vid den högsta arbetstemperaturen 33.4°C med OLR 3.072g CODtotal/(l * dag) och HRT 4.2h. Energibalansen vid olika arbetstemperaturer visaratt det finns en stor skillnad i energibehov för uppvärmning och utbyte avenergi i form av biogas. För att minska klimatpåverkan och nå balans mellan input och output av energi måste energibehovet för uppvärmning reduceras. Energiåtervinning från utflöde till inflöde liksom drift av UASB vid låg temperatur är ämnen som kan studeras vid fortsatt arbete.

In order to decrease the pollution of the marine environment from dumping fish waste and by-catch, alternative use for co-digestion with sludge in anaerobic condition was studied. The purpose of this project is to optimize the methane potential from adjustment of the proportion among mixed substrates. Ten groups of different proportions among fish waste, by-catch and sludge were conducted with AMPTS II instrument under mesophilic condition (37 ± 0.5 ºC), by means of the principle of BMP test. The ratio of inoculums and mixed substrate was set as 3:2. The optimal MP obtained after an experiment with 13 days digestion was 0.533 Nm3 CH4/kg VS from the composition of sludge, by-catch and fish waste as 33 %, 45 % and 22 %. It was improved by 6 % and 25.6 %, to compare with the previous studies by Almkvist (2012) and Tomczak-Wandzel (personal communication, February 2012) respectively.

Im Ergebnis der in den Jahren 2006 und 2007 an der TU Freiberg durchgeführten Gärversuche stand die Forderung nach weiteren Untersuchungen der in der Praxis vorherrschenden Mischsubstrate auf ihre grundsätzliche Vergärbarkeit, Gasproduktion und Gaszusammensetzung. So wurden Ganzpflanzensilage (GPS) Triticale, Kleegras-, Luzernegrassilage, Maissilage, Zuckerrübe, Gehaltsrübe, kaltgepresster Rapskuchen oder fusarienbelasteter Triticaleschrot als Cofermente zu Rindergülle oder Hühnerkot eingesetzt. GPS Triticale und Zuckerrüben lieferten als Monosubstrate keine stabile Vergärung und damit keine auswertbaren Ergebnisse. Spitzenwerte in der Methangasproduktion erzielten Rindergülle in Kombination mit GPS Triticale oder Zuckerrüben. Ebenfalls hohe Methangasausbeuten erzielte die Kombination von Maissilage und Hühnertrockenkot mit Rindergülle. Bei der Cofermentation von mykotoxinbelastetem Getreide ergab sich kein negativer Einfluss auf die Prozessstabilität. Die Zugabe von Enzymen als Betriebshilfsstoff bewirkte eine geringfügige Steigerung der Methangasproduktion. Für die Prozessoptimierung und damit optimale Auslastung der Biogasanlage sollten sprunghafte Veränderungen der Inputzusammensetzung vermieden werden.