Posts Tagged ‘Research’
The IKTS optimizes biogas production from maize straw
Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems (IKTS) in Dresden have developed a facility which uses methane as waste from the food industry . Thus, competition for agricultural land use between food and energy sectors should be reduced. “Our pilot plant uses only secondary products of agriculture such as straw, corn ie corn stalks without ears,” says Michael Stelter, a researcher at the IKTS. In addition, the new facility will produce 30% more biogas than the previous generation.
An additional advantage: thanks to some enzymes, the time of fermentation of biomass has been reduced from 80 to 30 days. Mr. Stelter says: “The maize straw contains cellulose that can not ferment directly. In our factory, the cellulose is digested by enzymes before fermentation silage begins.”
German biogas plant is 85 percent efficient
The Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems has developed a pilot-scale biogas plant that’s 85 percent efficient for producing heat and electricity from agricultural waste.
According to Michael Stelter, a researcher at IKTS, the biogas plant includes a pretreatment process that reduces the time it takes agricultural waste to break down so it can be fermented. The biogas plant also includes a fuel cell that converts biogas to heat and electricity.
Using an enzymatic hydrolysis pretreatment, the biogas plant technology increases the amount of biomass available for fermentation, Stelter said. The technology also reduces the amount of time it takes for the biomass to decompose and ferment into biogas by 50 to 70 percent. Fermentation time is reduced from 80 to 30 days, he said, and the plant generates 30 percent more biogas than conventional technologies.
