Technical and economic analysis of a cogeneration plant fueled by biogas produced from livestock biomass

AbstractThis technical report illustrates an anaerobic digestion plant for the production of biogas designed to be powered by livestock biomass, combined with a 330 kWe CHP unit co-generator, installed in a cattle farm located in the province of Reggio Emilia. The plant consists essentially of a pre-treatment system of the effluents to the load, two anaerobic continuously stirred tank reactors and heated under mesophilic regime sheltered with gasometric coverings with double membrane; at the end of the process of fermentation, the digestate converges in a solid-liquid separation system with helical compression and a storage tank of the clarified fraction, sheltered with a covering for the containment of residual gaseous emissions into the atmosphere. The produced biogas is collected in gasometers placed above the tanks and, after desulfurization, dehumidification and cooling, it fuels the co-generator. The report is determined to illustrate the experimental results for the first 12 months of operation of the plant that confirmed, both in terms of energy and from a financial perspective, the efficiency of biogas plants fueled only by livestock effluents

Monolithic and hybrid near infrared detection and imaging based on poli-Ge photodiode arrays”, Optic. Mater. 27, 1079-83 (2005)

In recent years, several Ge-on-Si technologies for the fabrication of near infrared photodetectors on Si substrates were proposed. In particular, using a low temperature (300 °C) technique, we have demonstrated poly-Ge_on_Si detectors with high speed and good NIR responsivity. The low process temperature allows the monolithic integration of the detectors as a final step in the fabrication of Si CMOS integrated circuits. After an introduction on poly-Ge, we describe a novel integrated chip (NIRCAM-1) designed as a readout/control circuit for arrays of 64 (32) poly-Ge_on_Si photodetectors. The photodiodes, monolithically integrated (wirebonded with a hybrid approach) on the IC, generate a photocurrent which is then ADC converted after subtraction of the dark component, thus allowing a convenient digital readout of the array. The extensive optoelectronic characterization of the IC is presente