Energy and Nutrients from Apple Waste Using Anaerobic Digestion and Membrane Technology.

The worldwide increment of food waste requires innovative management solutions, aligned with sustainability, energy, and food security. Anaerobic digestion (AD), followed by nutrient recovery, may be considered an interesting approach. This study proposed a co-digestion of apple pomace (AP) with swine manure (SM) to study the effect of different proportions of AP (0, 7.5, 15, and 30%, on a volatile solids (VS) basis) on the methane production and the stability of the process. Subsequently, the gas-permeable membrane (GPM) technology was applied to recover nitrogen (N) as ammonium sulfate (bio-based fertilizer) from the digestates produced after the AD of 7.5% of AP and SM, and SM alone. The results showed that the co-digestion of 7.5% and 15% of AP with SM presented a methane production similar to the AD of SM alone (with 412.3 ± 62.6, 381.8 ± 134.1, and 421.7 ± 153.6 mL g VS-1 day-1, respectively). The later application of the GPM technology on the resulting digestates, with SM alone and with 7.5% of AP with SM, showed total ammoniacal N recovery rates of 33 and 25.8 g N m-2 d-1, respectively. Therefore, the AP valorization through the AD process, followed by N recovery from the digestate, could be a good management strategy.

Pilot-Scale Demonstration of Membrane-Based Nitrogen Recovery from Swine Manure.

Gas-permeable membranes technology presents a high potential for nitrogen (N) recovery from wastewaters rich in ammonia (NH3). The EU project Ammonia Trapping (AT) is aimed at transferring knowledge from the lab-scale level to on-farm pilot-scale level, using this technology to recover NH3 from livestock wastewaters. The goal of this study is to report the results of an on-farm pilot-scale demonstration plant using gas-permeable membranes to recover N from raw swine manure. After a setup optimization of the plant, stable, and continuous operation was achieved. The maximum NH3 recovery rate obtained was 38.20 g NH3-N m-2 membrane day-1. This recovery rate was greatly affected by the temperature of the process. In addition to its contribution to NH3 emissions reduction, this technology contributes to the recovery of nutrients in the form of a concentrated stable ammonium sulphate solution. This solution contained 3.2% of N, which makes it suitable for fertigation. The economic approach revealed an economic feasibility of the technology, resulting in a cost of 2.07 € per kg N recovered.

Evaluation of Fenton method and ozone-based processes for colour and organic matter removal from biologically pre-treated swine manure.

This work evaluates the efficiency of different advanced oxidation processes (Fenton method, O3, H2O2 and O3/H2O2) for removing total COD (TCOD) and colour from biologically pre-treated swine manure. The Fenton process with a dosage of 100 mg L(-1) of Fe(2+) and 800 mg L(-1) of H2O2 resulted in about 78% TCOD and 96% colour reductions at an initial pH=3 after a reaction time of 30 min. Coagulation, rather than oxidation process, was identified as a crucial mechanism for removing pollutants. Otherwise, single ozonation achieved only 27-30% TCOD and 53-88% colour removals for ozone dosages ranging between 0.7 and 4.3 g O3 h(-1) at the original wastewater pH (pH=8.1) after 30 min reaction time. The combined treatment with O3/H2O2 at pH=8.1 did not produce any significant TCOD or colour reduction improvement. Therefore, direct reactions with ozone rather than radical reactions were elucidated as the main removal mechanisms in the ozone-based processes. Finally, a rough estimation of the operational costs involved in each process was also performed to compare their economic feasibility. The findings suggested that the Fenton process was more suitable than ozonation for reducing TCOD and colour from the biologically pre-treated swine manure.