Anaerobic digester gas production

Biogas production is a sustainable bioenergy process very much in demand nowadays for all the benefits it entails. It does not only allow production of clean energy and thus autonomy from fossil fuels, but also the recirculation of nutrients back to the crop fields and the decrease on greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector.

Biogas production is very versatile, because a wide variety of materials can be used as resources to generate methane, including organic wastes that do not present a threat to food production. With the increase interest in employing different types of available agricultural and industrial materials as biogas feedstocks, improvements along the whole process need to be addressed so to make this technology an efficient one. This thesis deals with many aspects of the anaerobic digestion process in which improvement of both process efficiency and stability can be achieved.

Focus in particular was made on studying the effects of pre-treating highly li