Scaling-Up the Anaerobic Digestion of Pretreated Microalgal Biomass within a Water Resource Recovery Facility

Rubén Díez-Montero, Lucas Vassalle, Fabiana Passos, Antonio Ortiz, María Jesús García-Galán, Joan García and Ivet Ferrer
Additional contact information
Rubén Díez-Montero: GEMMA—Group of Environmental Engineering and Microbiology, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya·BarcelonaTech, c/Jordi Girona 1-3, Building D1, 08034 Barcelona, Spain
Lucas Vassalle: GEMMA—Group of Environmental Engineering and Microbiology, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya·BarcelonaTech, c/Jordi Girona 1-3, Building D1, 08034 Barcelona, Spain
Fabiana Passos: Department of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Av. Antônio Carlos, 6627, Belo Horizonte 31270-901, Brazil
Antonio Ortiz: GEMMA—Group of Environmental Engineering and Microbiology, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya·BarcelonaTech, c/Jordi Girona 1-3, Building D1, 08034 Barcelona, Spain
María Jesús García-Galán: GEMMA—Group of Environmental Engineering and Microbiology, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya·BarcelonaTech, c/Jordi Girona 1-3, Building D1, 08034 Barcelona, Spain
Joan García: GEMMA—Group of Environmental Engineering and Microbiology, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya·BarcelonaTech, c/Jordi Girona 1-3, Building D1, 08034 Barcelona, Spain
Ivet Ferrer: GEMMA—Group of Environmental Engineering and Microbiology, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya·BarcelonaTech, c/Jordi Girona 1-3, Building D1, 08034 Barcelona, Spain

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 20, 1-17

Abstract: Microalgae-based wastewater treatment plants are low-cost alternatives for recovering nutrients from contaminated effluents through microalgal biomass, which may be subsequently processed into valuable bioproducts and bioenergy. Anaerobic digestion for biogas and biomethane production is the most straightforward and applicable technology for bioenergy recovery. However, pretreatment techniques may be needed to enhance the anaerobic biodegradability of microalgae. To date, very few full-scale systems have been put through, due to acknowledged bottlenecks such as low biomass concentration after conventional harvesting and inefficient processing into valuable products. The aim of this study was to evaluate the anaerobic digestion of pretreated microalgal biomass in a demonstration-scale microalgae biorefinery, and to compare the results obtained with previous research conducted at lab-scale, in order to assess the scalability of this bioprocess. In the lab-scale experiments, real municipal wastewater was treated in high rate algal ponds (2 × 0.47 m 3 ), and harvested microalgal biomass was thickened and digested to produce biogas. It was observed how the methane yield increased by 67% after implementing a thermal pretreatment step (at 75 °C for 10 h), and therefore the very same pretreatment was applied in the demonstration-scale study. In this case, agricultural runoff was treated in semi-closed tubular photobioreactors (3 × 11.7 m 3 ), and harvested microalgal biomass was thickened and thermally pretreated before undergoing the anaerobic digestion to produce biogas. The results showed a VS removal of 70% in the reactor and a methane yield up to 0.24 L CH 4 /g VS, which were similar to the lab-scale results. Furthermore, photosynthetic biogas upgrading led to the production of biomethane, while the digestate was treated in a constructed wetland to obtain a biofertilizer. In this way, the demonstration-scale plant evidenced the feasibility of recovering resources (biomethane and biofertilizer) from agricultural runoff using microalgae-based systems coupled with anaerobic digestion of the microalgal biomass.

Keywords: agricultural runoff; anaerobic digestion; biogas; biomethane; biorefinery; microalgae; photobioreactor; pretreatment; wastewater (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: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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