Research on a New Method of Water Recovery from Biogas Plant Digestate

Mateusz Nowak, Wojciech Czekała (), Wiktor Bojarski and Jacek Dach
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Mateusz Nowak: Department of Biosystems Engineering, Poznań University of Life Sciences, Wojska Polskiego 50, 60-627 Poznań, Poland
Wojciech Czekała: Department of Biosystems Engineering, Poznań University of Life Sciences, Wojska Polskiego 50, 60-627 Poznań, Poland
Wiktor Bojarski: Department of Biosystems Engineering, Poznań University of Life Sciences, Wojska Polskiego 50, 60-627 Poznań, Poland
Jacek Dach: Department of Biosystems Engineering, Poznań University of Life Sciences, Wojska Polskiego 50, 60-627 Poznań, Poland

Energies, 2024, vol. 17, issue 21, 1-13

Abstract: Digestate is a product with valuable fertilizing properties, remaining after the anaerobic fermentation process. An essential feature of the substance in question is its high water content of up to 97%. To improve the fertilizer value of the digestate, it is necessary to dehydrate it to produce a concentrated product. This paper determined the possibility of dewatering the digestate using an innovative reactor design. The study, conducted on a laboratory scale, used digestate from a Polish biogas plant. The dewatering technique described in the paper is based on the evaporation and condensation of water vapor on the inner surface of the reactor dome. The condensate accumulated on the leach trough and was directed to a storage tank. During the weeks of testing, 11.5 kg of condensate was separated from the initial weight of the digestate (32 kg), with a dry weight of 6.11%. The resulting condensate from dehydration had an average pH value of 9.0 and an average ammonium nitrogen content of 2.07 g∙kg −1 . The economic calculations made in the paper allowed for estimating the expected savings associated with the management of digestate in Poland. The research showed the proposed technology’s high potential for dewatering digestate under laboratory conditions.

Keywords: digestate; biogas; water recovery; separation; energy use; sustainability (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: 2024
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