Feasibility Analysis on the Adoption of Decentralized Anaerobic Co-Digestion for the Treatment of Municipal Organic Waste with Energy Recovery in Urban Districts of Metropolitan Areas

Giovanni Gadaleta, Sabino De Gisi and Michele Notarnicola
Additional contact information
Giovanni Gadaleta: Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile, Ambientale, del Territorio, Edile e di Chimica, Politecnico di Bari, Via E. Orabona, 4, I-70125 Bari, Italy
Sabino De Gisi: Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile, Ambientale, del Territorio, Edile e di Chimica, Politecnico di Bari, Via E. Orabona, 4, I-70125 Bari, Italy
Michele Notarnicola: Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile, Ambientale, del Territorio, Edile e di Chimica, Politecnico di Bari, Via E. Orabona, 4, I-70125 Bari, Italy

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 4, 1-17

Abstract: Anaerobic digestion (AD) of organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) is considered an excellent solution for both waste management and energy generation, although the impacts of waste collection and transportation on the whole management system are not negligible. AD is often regarded as a centralized solution for an entire community, although recently, there has been some debate on the adoption of decentralized, smaller facilities. This study aims to evaluate the techno-economic feasibility of an AD plant at the local scale for the treatment of organic waste generated from urban districts. Depending on the type of feedstock, two scenarios were evaluated and compared with the reference scenario, based on composting treatment: (1) mono-AD of OFMSW and (2) co-AD of OFMSW and sewage sludge (SS). Furthermore, different district extensions of the metropolitan area were considered with the goal of determining the optimal size. Results showed the advantage of the two scenarios over the reference one. Scenario 1 proved to be the most suitable solution, because the introduction of SS in Scenario 2 increased costs and payback time, rather than generating a higher waste amount and lower biogas yield. The preferred district extension was the medium-sized one. Capital cost strongly affected the economic analysis, but revenue from the city for the management operation of the organic waste could significantly decrease costs. Further studies about the differences in the type of feedstock or the introduction of other criteria of analysis (such as environmental) are considered necessary.

Keywords: anaerobic digestion; co-generation; decentralized system; methane yield; municipal solid waste; techno-economic analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/4/1820/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/4/1820/ (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:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:4:p:1820-:d:498717

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

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