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Agricultural Wastes Utilization and Recycling for N Recovering and Manufacturing...
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Agricultural Wastes Utilization and Recycling for N Recovering and Manufacturing of Biofuel

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Waste and Recycling".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2023) | Viewed by 2741

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Ester Scotto di Perta

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Naples Federico II, 80055 Portici, Italy
Interests: manure management; ammonia emissions; GHG; anaerobic digestion; dark fermentation; ammonia stripping; manure treatment
Prof. Dr. Stefano Papirio

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, University of Naples Federico II, 80125 Naples, Italy
Interests: biofilm; wastewater treatment; sewage sludge; anaerobic digestion; biohydrogen; autotrophic denitrification; nitrogen cycle; sulfate reduction

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Nowadays, the circular economy plays an important role in the environmental sustainability of the agricultural sector by turning waste into biomaterials or biofuels. In this context, among the whole range of waste valorization methods exploitable, anaerobic digestion (AD) is a consolidated technology, which allows complying with Agenda 2030 and the EU Green Deal. It provides both residual material recycling and renewable energy production in the form of biogas. The return to agricultural fields of its effluents and byproducts is the key point ensuring the perfect cycle. Nevertheless, some unexploited points remain to be understood, concerning the release of potential pollutants into the atmosphere or water bodies. Thus, the scientific debate is mainly concerned with what treatment processes can follow AD, aiming to improve digestate characteristics and define a proper reuse for it. Among all agricultural activities, livestock manure management (LMM) represents a growing issue due to the rapid increase in livestock production. LMM affects both carbon and nitrogen biogeochemical cycles, mainly releasing ammonia, nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere. In this sense, AD provides value-added products (i.e., biogas, digestate) while avoiding releasing harmful gaseous compounds (CH4, and CO2). Nonetheless, the additional processing of digestate is required to promote sustainable agriculture, aimed at mitigating NH3 and N2O emissions and recovering N to produce organic-mineral fertilizer as an environmentally friendly substitute for expensive synthetic fertilizers. Therefore, due to the heterogeneity of agricultural systems, different digestate treatment methods are possible, but their whole environmental benefits and economic constraints still need to be addressed. For this purpose, life cycle assessment (LCA) could be a precious tool in evaluating different treatment technologies for better environmental returns.

Based on these premises, the aim of this Special Issue is to contribute to the ongoing discussions on agricultural waste utilization towards an organic waste circular economy approach, with an emphasis on recycling technologies for N recovery and biofuel production through anaerobic processes.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include the following:

  • Anaerobic processes for biofuel production as valorization routes for different agricultural wastes;
  • Anaerobic digestate processing for nutrients recovery;
  • Agricultural waste recycling to produce organic fertilizers;
  • Livestock manure treatment strategies for the reduction of NH3 and greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions;
  • Assessment of environmental impacts and efficiency of combined agricultural waste management practices;
  • Life cycle assessment (LCA).

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Ester Scotto di Perta
Prof. Dr. Stefano Papirio
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • ammonia emission
  • biogas production
  • livestock manure treatment
  • N recovery

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

10 pages, 1008 KiB  
Article
Ammonia Air Stripping from Different Livestock Effluents Prior to and after Anaerobic Digestion
by Ester Scotto di Perta, Raffaele Grieco, Stefano Papirio, Giovanni Esposito, Elena Cervelli, Marco Bovo and Stefania Pindozzi
Sustainability 2023, 15(12), 9402; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15129402 - 12 Jun 2023
Viewed by 986
Abstract
Livestock digestate provides nutrients and organic matter to the soil while increasing agricultural sustainability. Nevertheless, nitrogen (N) losses due to the nutrient surplus in regions characterized by intensive animal farming activities still represent an unsolved issue. For this purpose, digestate needs proper treatment [...] Read more.
Livestock digestate provides nutrients and organic matter to the soil while increasing agricultural sustainability. Nevertheless, nitrogen (N) losses due to the nutrient surplus in regions characterized by intensive animal farming activities still represent an unsolved issue. For this purpose, digestate needs proper treatment and management to avoid N losses in the environment. In the livestock farming context, anaerobic digestion (AD) can be accompanied by an ammonia stripping (AS) process for N recovery. This paper aims to investigate the feasibility AS prior to and after AD of the manure, focusing on two different livestock farms, representative of dairy cattle and pig breeding in southern Italy. AS was performed at a lab scale by injecting microbubbles of air, which allowed the pH to increase, and thus the removal of ammonia. The results show that treating a dairy raw slurry with high intermediate alkalinity (IA) (6707 mg CaCO3 L−1) with AS may not be convenient in terms of total ammonia nitrogen (TAN) reduction. As a matter of fact, the loss of buffering capacity during the stripping process resulted in a pH never exceeding the value of 9, which could not promote free ammonia volatilization, whereas integrating AD with AS allowed us to obtain a 34% higher TAN reduction under the same stripping conditions at a temperature (T) of 38 °C and a gas-to-liquid ratio (G/L) of 1:1. Therefore, the AS removal efficiency strongly depends on the characteristics (mainly IA) of the treated matrix. High IA values suggest a possible high concentration of volatile fatty acids, which hinders pH increases and, thus, enables ammonia stripping. Despite the initial matrix origin, a low IA compared to the total alkalinity (TA) (<20% of TA) ensures a greater ammonia removal efficiency, which could be similar between digestate and raw manure in the same operative process conditions. Nonetheless, the amount of ammonia stripped is related to the initial TAN concentration of the specific matrix. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Agricultural Wastes Utilization and Recycling for N Recovering and Manufacturing of Biofuel)
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11 pages, 1508 KiB  
Article
Effect of Temperature on Co-Anaerobic Digestion of Chicken Manure and Empty Fruit Bunch: A Kinetic Parametric Study
by M. Devendran Manogaran, Mohd Hakimi, Mohammad Harith Nizam Basheer Ahmad, Rashid Shamsuddin, Jun Wei Lim, Muzamil Abdalla M Hassan and Nurul Tasnim Sahrin
Sustainability 2023, 15(7), 5813; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15075813 - 27 Mar 2023
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1431
Abstract
The rapid growth of the Malaysian poultry and palm oil industries has led biomass waste generation in abundance specifically chicken manure and empty fruit bunch (EFB). Anaerobic digestion (AD) is a circular economy-based approach which converts chicken manure and EFB into biogas which [...] Read more.
The rapid growth of the Malaysian poultry and palm oil industries has led biomass waste generation in abundance specifically chicken manure and empty fruit bunch (EFB). Anaerobic digestion (AD) is a circular economy-based approach which converts chicken manure and EFB into biogas which can be utilized for heating and power generation. Operating temperature is an imperative consideration for AD hence the objective of the study is to evaluate the effect of different temperature profiles namely, psychrophilic (20 °C), mesophilic (35 °C) and thermophilic (50 °C) on AD of chicken manure and EFB. The kinetic parameters are also evaluated using five kinetic models to enable readers to comprehend the kinetic behaviours of the systems. The volume and composition of biogas is measured every five days for a 50-day retention time. The findings observed that mesophilic condition is the most favourable with cumulative methane, CH4 composition of up to 17.07%, almost two folds that of thermophilic (9.12%) and five folds that of psychrophilic (3.49%). The CH4 generation rate, Rb based on the modified Gompertz model which is deemed the best fit further supports these findings as the Rb under mesophilic condition is significantly higher (0.330 mL/gvs day) compared to psychrophilic (0.088 mL/gvs day) and thermophilic (0.120 mL/gvs day) conditions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Agricultural Wastes Utilization and Recycling for N Recovering and Manufacturing of Biofuel)
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