Description
Interest in anaerobic digestion (AD), the process of energy production through the production of biogas, has increased rapidly in recent years. Agricultural and other organic waste are important substrates which can be treated by AD.

This book is one of the first to provide a broad introduction to anaerobic digestion and its potential to turn agricultural crops or crop residues, animal and other organic waste, into biomethane. The substrates used can include any non-woody materials, including grass and maize silage, seaweeds, farm slurry, municipal and industrial wastes. These are all systematically reviewed in terms of their suitability from a biological, technical and economic perspective. In the past the technical competence and high capital investment required for industrial-scale anaerobic digesters has limited their uptake, but the authors show that recent advances have made smaller-scale systems more viable through a greater understanding of optimising bacterial metabolism and productivity. Broader issues such as life cycle assessment and energy policies to promote AD are also discussed.

Preface

Prologue

1. Sustainable Agriculture and Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Jonathan S. West

Part I: Legislation-Energy Policy

2. Energy and Agricultural Policy in Relation to Biomethane, with Particular Reference to the Transport Sector

Beatrice Smyth

3. Biomethane Production and Land Use Change

Surajbhan Sevda, Deepak Pant and Anoop Singh

Part II: Feedstocks

4. Grass and Grass Silage: Agronomical Characteristics and Biogas Production

Joseph McEniry, Nicholas E. Korres and Padraig O’Kiely

5. Maize and Maize Silage for Biomethane Production

Markus Neureiter

6. Suitability of Microalgae and Seaweeds for Biomethane Production

John A. H. Benzie and Stephen Hynes

7. Organic Wastes for Biomethane Production

Anoop Singh

8. Industrial Residues for Biomethane Production

Markus Ortner, Bernhard Drosg, Elitza Stoyanova and Günther Bochmann

Part III: Anaerobic Digestion Technology

9. Anaerobic Digesters: Perspectives and Challenges

Abdul-Sattar Nizami, Bradley A. Saville and Heather L. MacLean

10. Biogas Upgrading and Compression

Prasad Kaparaju, Saija Rasi and Jukka Rintala

11. Storage and Distribution of Biomethane

Nicholas E. Korres

12. Variation in Anaerobic Digestion: Need for Process Monitoring

Nicholas E. Korres and A.S. Nizami

13. General Principles of Data Warehouse and Data Mining in Anaerobic Digestion

Anastasios Dekazos, Nicholas E. Korres, Paul Stack, Dimitrios N. Argyropoulos and Ammar Ahmed

Part IV: Genetics and Population Dynamics

14. Microbial Communities and their Dynamics in Biomethane Production

Dimitrios N. Argyropoulos, John A. H. Benzie and Theo H. Varzakas

15. Anaerobic Digestion and Biomethane Production in the Era of Modern Biotechnology

Dimitrios N. Argyropoulos, John A. H. Benzie and Crysoula Psallida

Part V: Sustainability in Anaerobic Digestion

16. Life Cycle Assessment as a Tool for Assessing Biomethane Production Sustainability

Nicholas E. Korres

17. The Use of Digestate as a Substitute for Manufactured Fertiliser

Brian Chambers and Matthew Taylor

18. The Sustainability of Small-Scale Anaerobic Digesters at Farm Scale

Phillip Hobbs and Allan Butler

19. Biogas Technology: An Approach to Sustainable Development in Developing Countries

M.S. Dhanya, Shiv Prasad and Anoop Singh

Concluding Remarks

References

Index