What is Anaerobic digestion?
Anaerobic digestion is a biological process during which microorganisms digest organic waste such as food waste, farm manure, or sewage sludge, and turn it into biogas and biological fertiliser. Biogas from anaerobic digestion is an important source of renewable energy. There are currently more than 600 operational anaerobic digestion plants in the UK, and their number is set to grow significantly in the years to come. Therefore, anaerobic digestion is a key green technology that is well-positioned to deliver immediate action on climate change and to contribute towards reaching Net Zero targets.
CreChar®’s benefits for anaerobic digestion
Anaerobic digestion plants face multiple challenges, including:
- Process instability: Changes in operational conditions or feedstock can lead to process instability or even complete failure.
- Low performance: Inefficiencies within the anaerobic digestion process can result in low biogas yields and reduced revenue.
Hence, anaerobic digestion plant operators spend a lot of time and money looking for innovative solutions to overcome these problems.
This is where CreChar® can help: by stabilising the anaerobic digestion process and increasing biogas yields by up to 15%, it helps biogas plants to consistently operate at their full potential.
CreChar®
Full scale trials of CreChar®
performance in anaerobic digestion
Carbogenics understands that the ease with which CreChar® can be used and the real benefits to be gained from it can only be determined at industrial scale. Therefore, we are conducting a series of trials of CreChar® in fully operational anaerobic digestion plants in the UK. The sites chosen for the initial trials use a mixture of farm wastes, manures, distillery by-products and energy crops as feedstocks.
CreChar® is supplied in digestible bags, which are added to the solid feed hopper during the normal course of the feeding programme. This means there is no disruption to the normal operating procedures of the plant and the staff do not come into contact with the CreChar®.
The first trial was conducted at the Strathendrick Biogas plant in Stirlingshire. A performance baseline was determined prior to the start of CreChar® addition, using data from the site itself along with chemical analysis conducted in our laboratories, and the process was monitored throughout the trial period. This initial trial was encouraging, with the plant operator reporting reduced feedstock costs during the trial.
We are currently conducting or planning four further trials in plants across the UK to provide more data on the effectiveness of CreChar® in the Anaerobic Digestion process.