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Cell Biology JoVE (Open Access) Citable · DOI

Evaluation of Integrated Anaerobic Digestion and Hydrothermal Carbonization for Bioenergy Production

DOI: 10.3791/51734-v
What you'll learn
  • ✓ Operate an Upflow Anaerobic Solid State reactor for biogas production from fibrous biomass
  • ✓ Perform hydrothermal carbonization of anaerobic digestate in pressurized batch reactors
  • ✓ Analyze elemental composition of raw feedstock, digestate, and HTC biochar
  • ✓ Evaluate integrated anaerobic digestion and HTC for optimized bioenergy yield
Protocol

A novel Upflow Anaerobic Solid State (UASS) reactor was used for biogas production from fibrous feedstock. Digestate from UASS reactor was hydrothermally carbonized into HTC biochar in a pressurized batch reactor. The integration of the two bioenergy concepts was applied in this study to increase overall bioenergy production.

Difficulty
advanced
Total time
~14–21 days (digestion 10–14 days, carbonization 2–4 hrs, analysis 1–2 days)

Steps

1
Conduct anaerobic digestion of wheat straw feedstock

Load fibrous feedstock into an Upflow Anaerobic Solid State (UASS) reactor and operate under anaerobic conditions to generate biogas. Monitor digestion progress and collect digestate for downstream processing.

▶ 01:58
2
Hydrothermally carbonize digestate into biochar

Transfer anaerobic digestate into a pressurized batch reactor and apply hydrothermal carbonization conditions to convert digestate into HTC biochar. Cool and recover solid product.

▶ 03:42
3
Perform elemental analysis of all samples

Conduct elemental composition analysis on raw wheat straw, digestate, and HTC biochar using appropriate analytical techniques to characterize changes in carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen content.

▶ 05:14
4
Evaluate bioenergy production results

Quantify biogas yield, biochar properties, and energy recovery from the integrated process. Compare bioenergy output against single-pathway controls.

▶ 05:49
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