Anaerobic Digestion of Lignocellulosic Waste Materials

Vasiliki Kamperidou and Paschalina Terzopoulou
Additional contact information
Vasiliki Kamperidou: Department of Harvesting and Technology of Forest Products, Faculty of Forestry and Natural Environment, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece
Paschalina Terzopoulou: Department of Harvesting and Technology of Forest Products, Faculty of Forestry and Natural Environment, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 22, 1-23

Abstract: Nowadays, the climate mitigation policies of EU promote the energy production based on renewable resources. Anaerobic digestion (AD) constitutes a biochemical process that can convert lignocellulosic materials into biogas, used for chemical products isolation or energy production, in the form of electricity, heat or fuels. Such practices are accompanied by several economic, environmental and climatic benefits. The method of AD is an effective method of utilization of several different low-value and negative-cost highly available materials of residual character, such as the lignocellulosic wastes coming from forest, agricultural or marine biomass utilization processes, in order to convert them into directly usable energy. Lignin depolymerization remains a great challenge for the establishment of a full scale process for AD of lignin waste. This review analyzes the method of anaerobic digestion (biomethanation), summarizes the technology and standards involved, the progress achieved so far on the depolymerization/pre-treatment methods of lignocellulosic bio-wastes and the respective residual byproducts coming from industrial processes, aiming to their conversion into energy and the current attempts concerning the utilization of the produced biogas. Substrates’ mechanical, physical, thermal, chemical, and biological pretreatments or a combination of those before biogas production enhance the hydrolysis stage efficiency and, therefore, biogas generation. AD systems are immensely expanding globally, especially in Europe, meeting the high demands of humans for clean energy.

Keywords: anaerodic digestion; bacteria; bioenergy; biogas; biomethanation; digester; lignin; lignocellulosic; methane; waste (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/22/12810/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/22/12810/ (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:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:22:p:12810-:d:683063

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

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