Feasibility study for anaerobic digestion of agricultural crop residues. Final report

Technical Report · Mon Oct 01 04:00:00 EDT 1979

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/5590076· OSTI ID:5590076

Ashare, E.; Buivid, M. G.; Wilson, E. H.

This study provides cost estimates for the pretreatment/digestion of crop residues to fuel gas. Agricultural statistics indicate that the crop residues wheat straw, corn stover, and rice straw are available in sufficient quantity to provide meaningful supplies of gas. Engineering economic analyses were performed for digestion of sheat straw, corn stover, and rice straw for small farm, cooperative, and industrial scales. The results of the analyses indicate that the production of fuel gas from these residues is, at best, economically marginal, unless a credit can be obtained for digester effluent. The use of pretreatment can double the fuel gas output but will not be economically justifiable unless low chemical requirements or low-cost chemicals can be utilized. Use of low-cost hole-in-the-ground batch digestion results in improved economics for the small farm size digestion system, but not for the cooperative and industrial size systems. Recommendations arising from this study are continued development of autohydrolysis and chemical pretreatment of agricultural crop residues to improve fuel gas yields in an economically feasible manner; development of a low-cost controlled landfill batch digestion process for small farm applications; and determination of crop residue digestion by-product values for fertilizer and refeed.

• Research Organization: Dynatech R/D Co., Cambridge, MA (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: EG-77-C-01-4042
• OSTI ID: 5590076
• Report Number(s): SERI/TR-8157-1
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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AGRICULTURAL WASTES
ANAEROBIC DIGESTION
AVAILABILITY
BIOCONVERSION
BIOMASS
BIOSYNTHESIS
CEREALS
COMMERCIALIZATION
COST
DIGESTION
ECONOMIC ANALYSIS
ECONOMICS
ENERGY SOURCE DEVELOPMENT
ENERGY SOURCES
FARMS
FEASIBILITY STUDIES
FLUIDS
FUEL GAS
FUELS
GAS FUELS
GASES
GRAMINEAE
GRASS
MAIZE
MANAGEMENT
OPTIMIZATION
PLANTS
PROCESSING
RECOMMENDATIONS
RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES
RICE
SOLID WASTES
STRAW
SYNTHESIS
WASTE MANAGEMENT
WASTE PROCESSING
WASTES
WHEAT