Biogas Production from Olive Oil Mill Byproducts: A Comparative Study of Two Treatments for Pursuing a Biorefinery Approach

Jessica Di Mario, Antonella Ranucci, Alberto Maria Gambelli (), Marco Rallini, Dario Priolo, Monica Brienza, Debora Puglia, Daniele Del Buono and Giovanni Gigliotti
Additional contact information
Jessica Di Mario: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Perugia, Via G. Duranti 93, 06125 Perugia, Italy
Antonella Ranucci: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Perugia, Via G. Duranti 93, 06125 Perugia, Italy
Alberto Maria Gambelli: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Perugia, Via G. Duranti 93, 06125 Perugia, Italy
Marco Rallini: Consorzio Interuniversitario Nazionale per la Scienza e Tecnologia dei Materiali (INSTM)—University of Perugia Research Unit (UdR Perugia), Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Perugia, Strada di Pentima 4, 05100 Terni, Italy
Dario Priolo: Department of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences, University of Perugia, Borgo XX Giugno 74, 06121 Perugia, Italy
Monica Brienza: Department of Sciences, University of Basilicata, Via dell’Ateneo Lucano 10, 85100 Potenza, Italy
Debora Puglia: Consorzio Interuniversitario Nazionale per la Scienza e Tecnologia dei Materiali (INSTM)—University of Perugia Research Unit (UdR Perugia), Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Perugia, Strada di Pentima 4, 05100 Terni, Italy
Daniele Del Buono: Department of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences, University of Perugia, Borgo XX Giugno 74, 06121 Perugia, Italy
Giovanni Gigliotti: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Perugia, Via G. Duranti 93, 06125 Perugia, Italy

Agriculture, 2025, vol. 15, issue 21, 1-20

Abstract: Olive cultivation is one of the most widespread agro-industrial activities in the Mediterranean area. However, required pretreatments often affect the anaerobic digestion process, promoting or inhibiting the overall yield. Therefore, the efficiency of Anaerobic Digestion (AD) processes cannot be established in advance but needs to be experimentally validated for each biomass-pretreatment combination. Following the present purpose, these biomasses were firstly treated: the olive pomace (OP) with a procedure based on the use of an ionic liquid (IL) composed of triethylamine and sulfuric acid [Et 3 N][HSO 4 ] to remove hemicellulose and lignin and recover the insolubilized OP, while olive mill wastewater (OW) was processed via freeze-drying. The resulting materials, the pulp from olive pomace (POP) and freeze-dried OW (FDOW), were then digested using lab-scale anaerobic reactors. The biogas production was then compared with the quantity obtained by digesting the same untreated biomasses (OW and OP). The FDOW showed the highest biogas production due to the freeze-drying treatment that led to some morphological and structural surface modifications of OW (respectively, 658 mL vs. 79 mL/g for the two matrices), prompting microorganism activity. Conversely, the method based on the use of IL significantly reduced the nitrogen content of POP, thus resulting in the lowest biogas production, which ceased by the second day. To address this issue, we co-digested POP with the brewery’s spent grain, a biomass rich in nitrogen. This step enhanced the biogas yield of POP, resulting in an extended anaerobic digestion period and the production of 466 mL/g. Additionally, we tested FDOW in co-digestion with BSG to evaluate improvements in production. The codigestion of the two matrices increased the biogas yield of FDOW from 944 to 1131 mL/g.

Keywords: bioeconomy; biorefinery; brewery’s spent grain; olive mill wastewater; olive pomace (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/15/21/2204/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/15/21/2204/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:15:y:2025:i:21:p:2204-:d:1778190

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().