(622ai) Biogas Production from Three Lignocellulosic Residues: Coffe Cut-Stems (CCS), Sugarcane Bagasse and Pinus Patula

Biogas Production from three
Lignocellulosic Residues: Coffe Cut-Stems (CCS),
Sugarcane Bagasse and Pinus patula

Sanchez Julio C, Garcia Carlos, Cardona Carlos A

¹Universidad Nacional
de Colombia sede Manizales, Instituto de Biotenologia
y Agroindustria, (+57) (6) 879400 ext 55354.

________________________________________________________________________________

Biogas is a mixture of methane (CH₄), carbon dioxide (CO₂)
and hydrogen (H₂) among others. It can be considered a form of green
energy is gaining popularity worldwide, due to politic, economic and
environmental reasons. Some countries in Europe have already applied biogas for
its energy supply, as for example Germany that at the end of 2008 had approximately
4.000 agricultural biogas production units on its farms.  

Biogas is produced in anaerobic digestion process which is carried out
in four steps: hydrolysis, acidogenesis, acetogenesis/dehydrogenation and
methanation. Each one of these steps is performed by different classes of microorganisms:
acetogenic bacteria (hydrolyses substrates and synthetizes volatile fatty acids
(VFA) mostly acetic acid), H₂-producing bacteria and methanogenic
bacteria       (break acetic acid into CH₄
and CO₂ or take hydrogen and carbon to form methane) [1].

Multiple sources of organic material can be useful for biogas production
as they are residues of others 
processes  such as municipal solid
waste (MSW), crop residues, animal manure, forest residues or dedicated energy
crops, which are mostly composed by lignocellulosic material (cellulose,
hemicellulose, lignin and other substances) [2]. In Colombia case  some available sources of
lignocellulose considered as agriculture residues are coffee cut-stems (CCS)
[3], Pinus patula residues
and sugarcane bagasse [4].

The aim of this work is to present an approach for the sustainability assessment
of biogas production from common agroindustrial residues for bioenergy production,
specifically the biogas production from coffee cut-stems, Pinus patula residues and sugarcane bagasse.
Residues were experimentally characterized by measuring klason
lignin content, acid-soluble lignin content, holocellulose
content, cellulose content and ash content. Pretreatment of lignocellulosic
residues was done with particle size reduction and basic hydrolysis,
fermentation was carried out in strict anaerobic conditions and constant
temperature, biogas production rate was measure by volume displacement.  Energy, economic and environmental
simulations with experimental results were evaluated with Aspen Plus V8.4^®,
Aspen Economic Evaluator^® and WAR^® respectively [5],[6].

The obtained results lead to conclude that the studied lignocellulosic
resources are a profitable option for bioenergy production, but these results dramatically
depend of the scale of production.

BIBLIOGRAPHY