Energetic Valorization of Wet Olive Mill Wastes through a Suitable Integrated Treatment: H 2 O 2 with Lime and Anaerobic Digestion

Alessio Siciliano, Maria Assuntina Stillitano and Carlo Limonti
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Alessio Siciliano: Department of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, University of Calabria, 87036 Rende, CS, Italy
Maria Assuntina Stillitano: Department of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, University of Calabria, 87036 Rende, CS, Italy
Carlo Limonti: Department of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, University of Calabria, 87036 Rende, CS, Italy

Sustainability, 2016, vol. 8, issue 11, 1-15

Abstract: In the Mediterranean region, the disposal of residues of olive oil industries represents an important environmental issue. In recent years, many techniques were proposed to improve the characteristics of these wastes with the aim to use them for methane generation in anaerobic digestion processes. Nevertheless, these techniques, in many cases, result costly as well as difficult to perform. In the present work, a simple and useful process that exploits H 2 O 2 in conjunction with lime is developed to enhance the anaerobic biodegradability of wet olive mill wastes (WMOW). Several tests were performed to investigate the influence of lime amount and H 2 O 2 addition modality. The treatment efficiency was positively affected by the increase of lime dosage and by the sequential addition of hydrogen peroxide. The developed process allows reaching phenols abatements up to 80% and volatile fatty acids productions up to 90% by using H 2 O 2 and Ca(OH) 2 amounts of 0.05 gH 2 O 2 /gCOD and 35 g/L, respectively. The results of many batch anaerobic digestion tests, carried out by means of laboratory equipment, proved that the biogas production from fresh wet olive mill wastes is hardly achievable. On the contrary, organic matter abatements, around to 78%, and great methane yields, up to 0.34–0.35 L CH4 /g CODremoved , were obtained on pretreated wastes.

Keywords: anaerobic digestion; hydrogen peroxide; methane; olive mill wastes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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