Title:
Conductive Material Addition to Optimize Semicontinuous Biogas Production
Author(s):
Perego, C., Cappa, M., Olivo, S., Diaz-Miyar, J., Fischer, F., Principi, P.
Document(s):
Paper
Abstract:
Anaerobic Digestion is a well-known technology widely used for renewable energy production through the conversion of organic waste into biogas. From a process optimization perspective —particularly to enhance methane yield and reduce CO2 emissions— significant efforts have been made on the exploitation of recalcitrant organic matter by pre-treatments or process optimization. Among the different approaches, the use of conductive material to promote Direct Interspecies Electron Transfer process has gained increasing attention. Although a positive impact of conductive material has been demonstrated on laboratory scale by many researchers, these results mostly relate to short term tests on laboratory scale. Therefore, the lack of long-term experiments with real condition results is limiting their applicability to real-world conditions. The present study aims to fill the research gap by presenting the results of a six-month monitoring campaign treating thickened sludge in 60L anaerobic reactors. The reactors were amended weekly with Powdered Activated Carbon at a concentration of 20 g/L as conductive material. The results indicate that the presence of conductive material under these conditions enhanced both biogas and methane production rates compared to a control reactor without conductive material. Microbial community dynamics assessed by DNA metabarcoding evidenced an enrichment of hydrogenotrophic methanogens by the conductive material presence. These findings demonstrate the long-term effectiveness of conductive material under realistic operating conditions and support its potential for industrial-scale application, particularly in improving methane yields and contributing to CO2 mitigation through enhanced hydrogenotrophic methanogenesis.
Keywords:
microbial community, conductive material, hydrogenotrophic methanogenesis
Topic:
Biomass Conversion for Bioenergy
Subtopic:
Anaerobic digestion for biogas and biomethane production
Event:
33rd European Biomass Conference and Exhibition
Session:
4DO.4.1
Pages:
709 - 714
ISBN:
978-88-89407-25-7
Paper DOI:
10.5071/33rdEUBCE2025-4DO.4.1
Price:
FREE
