Mechanical and Alkaline Hydrothermal Treated Corn Residue Conversion in to Bioenergy and Biofertilizer: A Resource Recovery Concept

Subhash Paul, Animesh Dutta and Fantahun Defersha
Additional contact information
Subhash Paul: School of Engineering, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON N1G2W1, Canada
Animesh Dutta: School of Engineering, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON N1G2W1, Canada
Fantahun Defersha: School of Engineering, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON N1G2W1, Canada

Energies, 2018, vol. 11, issue 3, 1-20

Abstract: In this research fall time harvested corn residue (CR) was first mechanically pretreated to produce 5 mm chopped and <500 µm ground particles, which underwent an anaerobic digestion (AD) process to produce biomethane and biofertilizer. Another sample of CR was pretreated by an alkaline hydrothermal (HT) process using 1%, 2% and 3% NaOH to produce solid biocarbon and the resulting alkaline hydrothermal process water (AHTPW), a co-product of biocarbon, underwent fast digestion under AD conditions to produce biomethane and biofertilizer. A predetermined HT process of 240 °C for 30 min was considered and the effect of alkali content on the HT process for biocarbon and biomethane product a rate of 8.21 MJ kg −1 and 9.23 MJ kg −1 of raw CR, respectively. Among the three selected alkaline HT processes, the 1% NaOH HT process produced the highest hybrid bioenergy of 11.39 MJ kg −1 of raw CR with an overall energy recovery of 62.82% of raw CR. The AHTPW of 2% and 3% NaOH HT-treated CR did not produce considerable amount of biomethane and their biocarbons contained 3.44 MJ kg −1 and 3.27 MJ kg −1 of raw CR of bioenergy, respectively. The biomethane produced from 5 mm chopped CR, <500 µm ground CR and 1% alkaline AHTPW for 30 days retention time were of 275.38 L kg −1 volatile solid (VS), 309.59 L kg −1 VS and 278.70 L kg −1 VS, respectively, compared to non-treated CR of 144–187 L kg −1 VS. Nutrient enriched AD digestate is useable as liquid fertilizer. Biocarbon, biomethane and biofertilizer produced from the 1% alkaline HT process at 240 °C for 30 min can reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of Ontario.

Keywords: biomethane; bioenergy; biofertilizer; alkaline hydrothermal; anaerobic digestion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/11/3/516/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/11/3/516/ (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:jeners:v:11:y:2018:i:3:p:516-:d:133870

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

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