Chapters authored
Biogas - Turning Waste into Clean Energy
Expertise in biogas production using anaerobic digestion (AD) can offer many benefits in addition to being an alternative source of energy. This process involves plant digesters and provides an alternative destination for biomass that would eventually go unutilized and deposited in a trash heap. The application of the appropriate plant digester technology can generate energy, and the gas produced can be used for many purposes, such as water and space heating, lighting, and grain drying. In this context, agro residues are one of the most abundant energy sources available world wide. Nevertheless, the bioconversion of organic matter to biogas is a complex process of AD that involves many reactions among several microorganisms living in a stable community. Microorganisms from many diverse genera of obligate anaerobes and facultative anaerobes constitute these steps, and four groups are recognized to be the most frequent in biogas production plants. These groups, in order of substrate hydrolysis, are hydrolytic, acidogenic, and acetogenic bacteria, followed by the core group, the methanogenic archaea. All together, they compose the operation of a systematized activity with synergistic effects that ensure the stability of the process.
Part of the book: Fermentation Processes