LIGNOBIOL – Cascade use of lignocellulosic biomass to produce bioenergy

The rising worldwide energy demand leads to the depletion of fossil fuels reserves and at the same time, it increases the environmental impact caused by emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG). Utilization of fossil fuels causes not only climate change impacts such as global warming, but also many other environmental problems such as water and soil contamination that pose potential risks to human and animal health. Furthermore, increasing population growth leads to increased food demand and consumption. This upward trend creates competition between food and bioenergy markets. Hence, the so‐called “food or fuel” discussion is back. Challenges to counteract deciding between food and fuel that focus on the need to produce sustainable energy, while protecting environment, are the keys to replacing fossil fuels and lowering their greenhouse gas emissions. For this purpose, a completely new strategy with a proper sustainable system to supplying world’s energy demand must be found

ComProSol - Combustion of Processed Solid Biofuels

The goal of the ComProSol project is the mobilization of currently unused biogenic contingents such as residual and waste material for bioenergy feedstocks. Another budding option is the reactivation of fallow land to grow energy crops and short rotation coppice for energy recovery. In the course of Germany’s bioeconomy program, which will switch the economy from a petro-based to a bio-based society, the prioritized utilization of bio-based resources should always be the hierarchically most valuable. Food and forage production are given preference over material recycling and extracting raw materials. Another driver is the growing consciousness of environmental issues and nature conservation which limits the available cultivatable area by law. As a result, there is a supply bottleneck of economically competitive feedstock for bioenergy. In this context, the interdisciplinary project is based on the systematic interconnection of applications to create utilization cascades. Methodical corrective measures of ComProSol focus on influencing fuel properties by preconditioning through substrate and additive compound blending, sieving and compacting, and integrating process optimization. Collaboration with other subprojects that deal with bio- or thermal-chemical conversion will provide additional impetus for developing utilization applications. The initial work package of ComProSol, which recently started, defines the scope by dint of a regional potential feedstock cadaster in order to specify the further roadmap

Anaerobic digestion of road-side-green-cuttings as a poten-tial phytoremediator with different lead concentrations

The utilization of roadside-green-cuttings (grass) for anaerobic digestion increases provides an additional possible source of organic waste for use as a renewable energy source. Grass can be used as a substrate to increase biogas yield. Nevertheless, the anaerobic digestion of this kind of waste can be limited due to the fact that it could be contaminated with heavy metals, in particular from traffic emissions and industrial activity. For this reason the biogas production of grass from a busy road was assessed. Samples of roadside-grass were washed with an organosulphide, which is used for the removal of heavy metals from wastewater. A comparison of the anaerobic digestion of washed and unwashed roadside grass was performed. Results showed that the anaerobic digestion of the unwashed grass was much more effective than the washed grass. A second experiment was carried out and co-fermentation of manure and farm-grass was prepared for anaerobic digestion. Lead was added in the concentrations 500, 1000 and 2000 mg Pb2+/kg. The results showed that the higher the lead concentration, the lower the inhibition of the biogas yield. The grass could be acting as phytoremediator for high lead concentrations. The grass could contain organic compounds, which can as-similate heavy metals

Anaerobic Digestion of spent grains: Potential use in small-scale Biogas Digesters in Jos, Nigeria

In order to ascertain biogas yield potential and applicability of spent grains (SG)1 in small-scale biogas production, laboratory batch fermentation was performed with various masses of dry and wet SG using sewage sludge (SS)2 and digested maize silage (DMs) 3 as inoculums. Different volumes of biogas and CH4 were measured with higher volumes observed for batch fermentation with DMs in com-parison to those produced by SS. Results from the study reveals minimum biogas yield of 118.10 L/kg VS and maximum yields of 769.46 L/kg VS, which are indicative of the possible use of SG for domestic biogas production in Jos, Nigeria. The study established the fact that the use of both dry and wet SG results in the yield of a useful amount of biogas having 40 - 60 % CH4 content depending on the inoculum and amount of volatile solids present. Using the parameters of dry matter and volatile solids contents analysed for SG and DMs, it was estimated that a reactor volume of 6.47 m3 would be capable of meeting the daily cooking needs of rural households in Jos, Nigeria

Intelligent Energy in argicultural Farms

Intelligent use of energy is one of the keys to success for an energy revolution. To meet this challenge, smart meters are suitable tools because INTELLIGENT use of energy means not only to use efficiency technology, but also to determine load shifting potentials and use them accordingly. Especially farms with high power consumption are becoming increasingly concerned about reducing energy costs due to rising energy prices and need a systematic analysis of their operational energy flow. To find solutions for farms, the NaRoTec e.V., the TH Köln, and the Machinery Ring Höxter-Warburg have joined forces with partners and launched the project "Intelligent Energy in Agriculture", which is funded by the state of NRW in Germany. The aim of the project is to be able to give individual advice recommendations for energy optimization of agricultural holdings. This will be achieved inter alia through an operational energy audit and current measurements in different operating ranges. To achieve this, smart meters were installed in selected energy-intensive dairy and pig farms. As part of the project, the installed smart meter information of one of the dairy Farms is used to optimize the energy consumption of the farm and increase the degree of self-sufficiency. A good way to achieve this is by taking a closer look at the cooling process of the produced milk since it is one of the most energy consuming processes on a dairy farm. In addition an installation of an ice cooling system instead of a direct cooling system enables the possibility to store self-produced energy in the form of ice and use it later on when it is needed to cool the milk. This flattens the usual energy peaks throughout the day and increases the degree of self-sufficiency. To ensure a sufficient amount of self-produced energy with solar power plants of various sizes were designed. The different sizes of the power plants are defined by the use of the gathered smart meter data is used to cover different electric loads in addition to the ice water cooling system. Afterwards the different simulated models are compared to find the best balance between energy production, investment cost and a high degree of self-sufficiency. First results show that using an ice cooling system in combination with a solar power plant improvement the degree of self-sufficiency by up to 7.8 %