Applied Energy 148 (2015) 3238

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

A new concept for enhancing energy recovery from agricultural residues

by coupling anaerobic digestion and pyrolysis process
F. Monlau a,, C. Sambusiti a,1, N. Antoniou c, A. Barakat b, A. Zabaniotou a,c
a

Star Agroenergy Research Group, University of Foggia, 89-91 Via Gramsci, 71122 Foggia, Italy
INRA, UMR 1208 Ingnierie des Agropolymres et Technologies Emergentes 2, place Pierre Viala, F-34060 Montpellier, France
c
Biomass Group, Chemical Engineering Department, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Un. Box 455, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece
b

h i g h l i g h t s
 Heat surplus from AD process can fully cover solid digestate drying.
 Digestate pyrolysis (500 C) results to 9 wt.%, 58 wt.%, and 33 wt.% of gas, oil and char.
 Coupling AD with pyrolysis produces more electricity (42%) compared to stand-alone AD.

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 15 August 2014
Received in revised form 2 March 2015
Accepted 4 March 2015
Available online 25 March 2015
Keywords:
Anaerobic digestion
Biochar
Bio-oil
Digestate
Electricity
Pyrolysis

a b s t r a c t
In a full-scale anaerobic digestion plant, agricultural residues are generally converted into biogas and
digestate, the latter usually produced in large amount. Generally, biogas is converted into heat, often lost,
and electricity, which is completely valorized or it is sold to the public grid. In this context, the aim of this
study was to investigate the feasibility to combine anaerobic digestion and pyrolysis processes in order to
increase the energy recovery from agricultural residues and the sustainability of the anaerobic digestion
plant. Results revealed that heat excess produced during anaerobic digestion could cover the drying
needs for the solid digestate, while pyrolysis of digestate at 500 C resulted in 8.8 wt.%, 58.4 wt.% and
32.8 wt.% of syngas, oil and char, respectively. The LHV of syngas was 15.7 MJ N m3, whereas pyrolysis
oil exhibited a HHV of 23.5 MJ kg1 after water extraction. The hybrid system operating in symbiosis
could increase the production of electricity from 9896 kWhel day1 to 14,066 kWhel day1 corresponding
to an increase of 42% compared to AD stand-alone plant.
2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
According to an integrated biorenery concept, the development of renewable energy generation, as biomethane, through
anaerobic digestion (AD) process appears to be one of very promising alternative to the depletion of fossil fuels and worldwide

Abbreviations: AD, anaerobic digestion; CHP, Cogeneration Heat and Power; EDD,
energy requirement for drying; EHeat, energy requirement for heating; EEvaporation,
energy requirement for evaporation; FM, fresh matter; HHV, higher heating value;
LHV, lower heating value; TS, total solids; VS, Volatile Solids; Cp, water specic
heat; Lv, latent heat of vaporization.
Corresponding author at: INRA, UMR 1208 Ingnierie des Agropolymres et
Technologies Emergentes 2, place Pierre Viala, F-34060 Montpellier, France.
Tel.: +33 (0)4 99 61 25 81; fax: +33 (0)4 99 61 30 76.
E-mail address: omonlau@hotmail.fr (F. Monlau).
1
Present address: INRA, UMR 1208 Ingnierie des Agropolymres et Technologies
Emergentes 2, place Pierre Viala, F-34060 Montpellier, France.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.03.024
0306-2619/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

greenhouse effects [1,2]. For this purpose, agricultural residues,

which are generally burnt on elds, represent interesting feedstocks for methane production due to their availability, low cost
and other suitable end uses.
AD is a biological process by which organic matter is transformed in absence of oxygen into biogas (a mixture of carbon dioxide and methane), during four steps (hydrolysis, acidogenesis,
acetogenesis and methanogenesis). The biogas produced can be
valorized as transport biofuel or further converted into heat and
electricity through a Cogeneration Heat and Power (CHP) system.
The last point is consistent with the present development of agricultural anaerobic digester in European countries where biogas,
in most of the cases, is converted by CHP. Electricity can be sold
to the public grid at a xed rate and provide economic benets
to farmers. On the contrary, a large part of heat is generally lost
due to the geolocalization of farms that prevents its distribution
to the district.

F. Monlau et al. / Applied Energy 148 (2015) 3238

Lignocellulosic biomass fed to the AD plant is characterized by

some recalcitrant components (i.e. lignin and crystalline cellulose)
that can limit its optimal degradation during AD process [2,3]. For
this purpose, various pretreatments were investigated to overcome
the initial recalcitrance of agricultural biomass [46]. In particular,
two recent studies investigated the effect of alkaline treatment to
enhance methane production of sunower stalks and sorghum forage in lab-scale anaerobic process, operated in continuous mode
[7,8]. Indeed, alkaline pretreatment was found efcient in increasing methane yield, however, a large part (>45 wt.%) of the matter
was not degraded during the process and remained in the digestate
[7,8].
Currently, valorization routes of digestate have been focused
mainly on its use as organic fertilizer [9]. However, this valorization requires a long storage period since the process is generally
realized in uncovered tanks from which several gases are lost to
the atmosphere contributing to the greenhouse effect [10]. Other
drawbacks are related to logistics; transportation cost for land disposal is strongly connected with the size of the anaerobic digester
plant and relatively high ammonia content in digestate limits its
eld disposal [11]. For this purpose, several other valorization
routes have been investigated to nd sustainable use of digestate.
Kratzeisen et al. [12] investigated the potential use of solid digestate as solid fuel. Funke et al. [11] studied an original cascaded production of biogas and hydrochar from wheat straw. Yue et al. [13]
investigated the feasibility of using solid anaerobic digestate for
bioethanol production. More recently, Menardo et al. [14] studied
the recirculation of digestate into the AD process and they reported
a methane production varying from 2.88 to 37.63 NL kg VS1 using
four digestate samples issued from plants operating with highly
different conditions. However, such methane potentials are low
probably due to the recalcitrant matter (mainly lignin bers and
crystalline cellulose) remaining in digestate [9].
As mentioned previously, an excess of heat is generally produced through a CHP system. This could be used to decrease the
moisture content of the solid digestate to fuel the pyrolysis process. Pyrolysis is a thermo-chemical process that converts organic
matter in absence of oxygen into three phases: pyrolysis gas, biooil and bio-char [1517]. Due to its high caloric content, pyrolysis
gas can represent an interesting supplementary energy source that
can be further converted into heat and electricity using internal
combustion engines. The bio-oil produced is of primary interest
as it can replace diesel in internal combustion engine to produce
electricity [18].
Literature studies proved that, through the pyrolysis process,
renewable energy (from gas and bio-oil) as well as valuable solid

33

materials (biochar) can be produced; the latter is proposed as carbon sequestration agent by land application [1921]. Alternatively,
biochar, due to its high porous reactive surface and structural characteristics, may also be used for environmental depollution applications and detoxication of lignocellulosic hydrolysates,
including the removal of large toxic molecules (such as phenanthrene or dyes and furans or phenolic compounds, respectively)
[2224]. To date, only few studies investigated pyrolysis process
fueled with the solid digestate derived from agricultural digesters;
they are mainly focused on biochar production [19,25]. However,
pyrolysis of solid digestate can contribute not only to the reduction
of the digestate cost management, but also to the generation of
biofuels (gas, bio-oil), making the overall process more energy sustainable [26,27]. Nonetheless, data about the energetic benet of
coupling AD with pyrolysis process are still scarce in literature.
In this context, the aim of this study was to investigate the feasibility of a hybrid dual system, which combines anaerobic digestion
and pyrolysis aiming to increase the energy recovery from agricultural residues and the sustainability of the anaerobic digestion
plant. For this purpose, the physico-chemical characteristics of
the solid digestate were rstly determined. Then, pyrolysis experiments at various temperatures (400, 500 and 600 C) were carried
out, followed by the pyrolysis products (syngas, bio-oil) characterization. Finally, a preliminary energy balance was drawn to state
out the sustainability of coupling AD and pyrolysis processes.
Fig. 1 depicts the symbiotic concept of the study.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Feedstock materials
Solid digestate was obtained from a full-scale biogas plant
located in South of Italy (Puglia region). The plant was fed with
56 t FM day1, composed of 5 wt.% of chicken manure, 9 wt.% of
groats, 29 wt.% of olive oil cake and 57 wt.% of triticale. Once collected, digestate sample was further dried at 105 C, followed by
biochemical analysis and pyrolysis experimentation. Table 1
depicts the main operational characteristics of the anaerobic digestion plant.
2.2. Digestate analysis
All chemical analyses were realized in duplicate. Total Solid
(TS), Volatile Solids (VS) and ash content were determined using
the TGA 701 (LECO). Digestate pH was measured after the

Fig. 1. Sustainable energy recovery from agricultural residues by coupling anaerobic digestion and pyrolysis process.

34

F. Monlau et al. / Applied Energy 148 (2015) 3238

addition of de-ionized water (mass ratio 1:20). The solution was

then hand shaken and allowed to stand for 5 min before measuring
the pH using the Mettler Toledo FE20 pH meter. Total carbohydrates content was determined using the phenol acid sulfuric
method [28]. C, H, N content was determined using an elementary
analyzer "Elementar Vario Macro cube". Proteins content was estimated by multiplying total nitrogen content (N) by 6.25.
Structural-carbohydrates and Klason Lignin contents were measured using a strong acid hydrolysis method adapted from NREL
protocol [29]. All monosaccharides (i.e. glucose, xylose, arabinose)
were analyzed by HPLC (Agilent 1260) coupled with a
refractometric detector. The analysis was carried out with a HiPLex H column, working at 50 C under a ow rate of
0.3 mL min1. The eluent corresponded to 5 mM H2SO4. The system was calibrated with glucose, xylose and arabinose standards
(SigmaAldrich). Thereafter, cellulose and hemicelluloses
contents were estimated as follows:

Cellulose%TS Glucose%TS=1:11

Hemicelluloses%TS Xylose%TS
Arabinose%TS=1:13

Table 1
Main operational characteristics and biogas production of the anaerobic digestion
plant.

Anaerobic digester parameters

Digester volume (m3)
Feeding (t FM day1)
Humidity (%)
HRT (days)
pH
Temperature (C)

3720
56
64.5
62
7.57.8
45

Biogas production
Biogas (Nm3 day1)
Methane (%)
Methane (Nm3 day1)
Total energy (kWh day1)a

5150
61
3142
31,415

10 kWh Nm3 methane.

where 1.11 is the conversion factor for glucose-based polymers

(glucose) to monomers and 1.13 is the conversion factor for
xylose-based polymers (arabinose and xylose) to monomers.
2.3. Pyrolysis experimental procedure
Pyrolysis experiments were performed at the Department of
Chemical Engineering at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
(Greece). Among the variety of reactors used for pyrolysis, either
of experimental, pilot or industrial scale, the rotary kilns appears
to have gained acceptance, generally because of the high yields
of the produced char [30]. In this study, a quartz rotary kiln reactor
was selected to carry out pyrolysis experiments. The experimental
set up included a quartz tube (L = 0.8 m, O.D. 0.03 m), a furnace
NABERTHERM DRSR-A-70/500/11 and a Vexta GF52G100 Oriental
Motor CO LTD mounted with a VEXTA DC Motor Driver (Model
BFD30C), Fig. 2.
For each experiment, the reactor was purged with Nitrogen for
30 min to ensure an oxygen free environment. The experiments
were carried out at three temperatures (400 C, 500 C and
600 C), with a heating rate of approximately 20 C min1 at atmospheric pressure and inert atmosphere (N2), while the residence
time at the maximum temperature was 10 min. 10 g of dry solid
anaerobic digestate was the feedstock of the rotary kiln. The collected pyrolysis products were char, liquid and non condensable
gas. Char was weighted after collection. The liquid product yield
was calculated by the mass balance, as follows:

W liquid W dry digestate  W gas  W biochar

The produced pyrolysis gas was analyzed ofine in a gas chromatographer (Model 6890N, Agilent Technologies) tted with two
columns, HP-Plot Q and HP-Molesive type reference [15]. The produced pyrolysis bio-oil was subjected to physical and chemical
analyses, including density, water content and elemental analysis.
The water content of the bio-oil was measured with Karl-Fischer
titration [31]. The water/aqueous phase present in the bio-oil, was
isolated from the organic phase using an organic solvent

Fig. 2. Rotary kiln reactor for digestate pyrolysis.

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F. Monlau et al. / Applied Energy 148 (2015) 3238

(dichloromethane). The organic phase of the bio-oil was then subjected to elemental analysis with an elemental CHN LECO-800
analyzer.
2.4. Energy calculations
First, energy requirement for drying solid digestate was estimated based on data provided by the owner of the AD plant
(Table 5). The energy requirement EDD (kWhth day1) for drying
daily solid digestate in daily basis was calculated using the modied equation from Barakat et al. [6].

EDD EHeat EEvaporation

Table 2
Chemical composition of solid digestate after mechanical screw separation.
Parameters

Values (S.D)

TS (%)
VS (% TS)
Ash (% TS)
pH
C (g 100 g1 TS)
H (g 100 g1 TS)
N (g 100 g1 TS)
Carbohydrates (g 100 g1 TS)
Cellulose (g 100 g1 TS)
Hemicelluloses (g 100 g1 TS)
Proteins (g 100 g1 TS)
Klason lignin (g 100 g1 TS)

29.7
72.1
12.7
9.05
42.5
6.08
1.43
35.0
17.0
10.1
8.9
31.9

(1.1)
(0.9)
(1)
(0.08)
(0.2)
(0.12)
(0.03)
(6.0)
(0.9)
(1.3)
(0.2)
(1.8)

1

where EHeat (kWhth day ) is the energy requirement to increase the

temperature of water and digestate from 25 C to 105 C; EEvaporation
(kWhth day1) is the energy requirement for water evaporationat
105 C.
EHeat and EEvaporation were calculated according the Eqs. (5) and
(6):

EHeat m  Cp  T Final  T Initial =3600

where m (kg day1) is the daily mass of water and digestate; Cp is

the water specic heat (4.18 kJ kg1C1); TInitial (C) is the initial
temperature of the substrate suspension, assumed as 25 C; TFinal
(C) is the nal temperature at 105 C.

EEvaporation mwater  Lv =3600

where Lv is the latent heat of vaporization equal to 2380 kJ kg1;

mwater (kg day1) is the daily mass of water in the solid digestate
sample.
Then, the energy recovery from bio-oil and syngas was determined according the laboratory data. The heating value of pyrolysis
gas was calculated based on the Eq. (7) and considering normalized
percentages [32].

LHVMJ Nm3 30  v=v%CO 25:7  v=v%H2 85:4

 v=v%CH4 151:3  v=v%C2 H4 C2 H6 
 0:42

7
1

The higher heating value (HHV) (MJ kg ) of bio-oil was determined

using the Eq. (8) used by Troy et al. [27]:

100 g1 TS was detected, which is lower than those measured by

Menardo et al. [14] who reported ash contents varying from 23
to 37.9 g 100 g1 TS on four anaerobic digestates issued from
mesophilic AD plants.
A pH value of 9.05 was determined, which is in agreement with
Menardo et al. [14] who reported pH values ranging from 8.6 to 9,
for solid separated digestate of three biogas plants treating mainly
manure and energy crops. A content of 42.5 and 6.08 g 100 g1 TS
were respectively determined for C and H. The proteins content
(8.9 g 100 g1 TS) derived mainly by codigestion of lignocellulosic
substrates with chicken manure. Total carbohydrates content of
35 g 100 g1 TS was determined. The above values suggest that
during AD a large part of biodegradable matter is not degraded,
mainly due to physico-chemical barriers limiting bacterial attack
[3]. Among carbohydrates composition, higher cellulose content
than hemicelluloses was noticed. Such results are in agreement
with previous studies who demonstrated that anaerobic digestion
process consumes hemicellulose at a faster rate than cellulose
[13,33].
Finally, high amount of Klason lignin was noticed after AD process (32 g 100 g1 TS). Such polymers are not degraded during AD
process and consequently are accumulated in the solid digestate
[8]. A high amount of lignin in the residual digestate after AD has
also been reported in literature for straw (21.1 g 100 g1) [14].
3.2. Pyrolysis products yields

HHV 3:55  C2  232  C  2230  H 51:2  C  H 131  N

20; 600

Finally, to draw the energy balance of the entire process, various

assumptions were made:
 Regarding a future implementation of pyrolysis at farm scale, a
step of pelletizing was added after the drying of solid digestate
to improve the storage and loading of solid digestate. For this
purpose, an energy requirement of 150 kWhel t1 TS was considered for the pelletizing step [12].
 Gas produced from AD and pyrolysis process was used as fuel
for CHP. The electrical energy efciency of the conversion system was considered as 35% [3].
 Similarly, bio-oil from pyrolysis process was converted through
an oil engine to CHP with an electrical efciency of 30% [18].
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Biochemical composition of solid digestate
Chemical composition of solid digestate is presented in Table 2.
After a mechanical screw separation, solid digestate was analyzed.
Total solids and volatile solids contents were 29.7 g 100 g1 FM
and 72.1 g 100 g1 TS, respectively. An ash content of 12.7 g

The obtained solid anaerobic digestate was pyrolyzed at three

temperatures (400 C, 500 C and 600 C). The experimental results
regarding pyrolysis product yields (pyrolysis gas, bio-oil and biochar) for the three temperatures investigated, are presented in
Table 3. Product yields ranged from 8.811.3 wt.% for pyrolysis
gas, 5358.4 wt.% for bio-oil and 32.835.7 wt.% for biochar.
Biochar yield is in full agreement with ndings of other studies
that have investigated pyrolysis of solid anaerobic digestate
[19,25,26]. However, bio-oil and gas yields were found to be different from literature data [19,26,27]. Indeed, in the present study,
production of oil was found to be higher than this reported in
literature. This is might because product yields as well as characteristics are strongly depended on not only feedstock type and
characteristics but also on operational parameters (pyrolysis temperature, heating rate, residence time) and reactor type; and thus it
is very difcult to compare results without taking in considerations
the above parameters [34].
As depicted in Table 3, a temperature increase above 400 C
favors cracking of solid digestate molecules, resulting to liquid
and gaseous products. In Table 3, detailed data of pyrolysis gas
as a fuel were provided. An increase of the pyrolysis process temperature resulted in a higher proportion of CO and H2 gases. The
ratio H2/CO also increased with the temperature. Heating values

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F. Monlau et al. / Applied Energy 148 (2015) 3238

Table 3
Pyrolysis product yields of the solid digestate pyrolysis at 400 C, 500 C and 600 C
and gas composition.

Table 5
Energy balance of solid digestate drying.

Temperature
400 C

500 C

600 C

35.7
53.0
11.3

32.8
58.4
8.8

34.0
55.8
10.2

Gas composition and characterisctic

CH4 (v/v%)
7.5
CO (v/v%)
32.9
CO2 (v/v%)
46
H2 (v/v%)
11.5
C2H6 (v/v%)
1.5
C2H4 (v/v%)
0.6
H2 + CO (v/v%)
44.4
H2/CO
0.35
Total gas (mL)
400
Gas yield (NL kg1 TS)
39.8
3
LHV (MJ N m )
9.5

15.8
51.6
17.5
11.6
2.5
1
63.1
0.22
670
69.8
15.7

12.3
40.5
3.4
41.4
1.7
0.7
81.9
1.02
750
75.2
15.5

Pyrolysis products distribution

Biochar yield (%)
Bio-oil Yield (%)
Gas yield (%)

a
b
c

of the gas produced was ranging from 9.5 to 15.7 MJ N m3 and
were in agreement with the study of Troy et al. [27] that reported
a HHV of 11.7 MJ m3 after pyrolysis at 600 C of anaerobically
digested pig manure bers [27].
The bio-oil produced is of primary interest as it can replace diesel in internal combustion engine [18]. Pyrolysis oil has several
environmental advantages over fossil fuels, since it is CO2/GHG
neutral. However, the lack of established or approved standards
for pyrolysiss oil quality and properties prohibits the general use
of pyro-oil as fuel. Bio-oil is expected to contain char particles,
waxy materials, aqueous droplets, droplets of different nature,
oxygenated compounds and water, which constitute an aqueous
and an organic phase [35]. Aiming to explore the suitability of pyrolytic oil as liquid fuel, the aqueous phase (45.02% w/w of pyrolysis
bio-oil) was separated from the organic phase. Then the organic
phase was subjected to elemental analysis presented in Table 4.
Characteristics of bio-oil obtained at 500 C (where the maximum
yield of bio-oil was obtained) were also provided in Table 4. As it
can be seen, pyrolysis oil density is higher than that of light fuel
oil (0.85 kg L1) [36]. The bio-oil oxygen content, density and water
content were found higher than those of conventional hydrocarbon
oils (diesel, gasoline). Pyrolysis oil has shown an HHV of
23.5 MJ kg1, which is much higher than the HHV of bio-oil from
the anaerobically digested pig manure pyrolysis (15.3 MJ kg1),
reported in the international literature [27].

3.3. Energy balances

3.3.1. Energy requirement for solid digestate drying
Biogas produced from anaerobic digester plant was converted
to CHP. Due to placement of anaerobic digester in rural area, heat
produced through CHP system is generally used for the self-consumption in the plant; however, a large part is lost in the
Table 4
Properties of the bio-oil organic phase at 500 C (dry basis).

Parameters

Values

C (g 100 g1)
H (g 100 g1)
N (g 100 g1)
Oa (g 100 g1)
Empirical Formula
Density (kg L1)
HHV (MJ kg1)

58.25
5.52
1.2
34.78
CH1.13O0.45N0.017
1.12
23.5

Dened by difference.

Biogas fueling a CHP system

Biogas (Nm3 day1)
Total energy (kWh day1)a
Electricity efciency conversion (%)
Heat efciency conversion (%)
Electricity produced (kWhel day1)
Heat produced (kWhth day1)
Electricity self-consumption plant (%)
Heat self-consumption plant (%)
Electricity surplus (kWhel day1)
Heat surplus (kWhth day1)

5150
31,415
35
50
10,995
15,708
10
15
9896
13,351

Solid digestate drying

Quantity solid digestate (t day1)b
Humidity (%)c
Quantity of water (t day1)
EHeat (kWhth day1)
EEvaporation (kWhth day1)
EDD (kWhth day1)

23.8
70.3
16.7
2209
11,041
13,249

10 kWh N m3 methane.

After solid/liquid mechanical screw separation.
Experimental value calculated in laboratory.

atmosphere, which could otherwise be used for the thermal drying

of the solid digestate.
According to Table 5, biogas production was 5150 Nm3 day1
with an average methane content of 61 v/v%. Biogas produced
was further converted into heat and electricity by a CHP system,
assuming an electrical efciency of 35% and a heat efciency of
50%. According to data provided by the AD owners, electrical plant
self-consumption of 10% was considered and thus an electrical net
gain of 9896 kWhel day1 was estimated to be produced daily.
Then, it was determined if the excess of heat produced was enough
to dry the solid digestate daily produced from the AD plant (23.8 t
of wet biomass, Fig. 3), to be further used in pyrolysis application.
Considering a heat digester consumption of 15% (data provided by
the owner), an excess of heat of 13,351 kWhth day1 was estimated
to be recovered. The total energy for digestate drying was calculated taking into account rst the heat necessary to reach the temperature of 105 C and further considering the energy necessary for
water evaporation. The amount of energy necessary to dry the
digestate was estimated as 13,249 kWhth day1. Interestingly, it
was noticed that the heat surplus produced during the AD process
(13,351 kWhth day1) was sufcient to cover a total drying of the
wet solid digestate for further application in pyrolysis process.

3.3.2. Energy balance of coupled anaerobic digestion and pyrolysis

process
For the overall energy balance, the results of pyrolysis at temperature of 500 C (Fig. 3) were taken in account because at this
pyrolysis temperature the maximum yield of bio-oil was attained.
Preliminary energy balances, by using anaerobic solid digestate
as pyrolysis feedstocks, were also reported by other researchers
[26,27]. However, one major challenge in realizing energy balances
is to consider both thermal and electrical energy, as suggested by
Carlsson et al. [37]. Indeed, electrical energy could be send to the
public grid providing extra income whereas the thermal energy,
after the self-consumption of the AD plant, is generally lost in
the atmosphere and not publically reused, mainly due to the fact
that usually anaerobic plants are far from the grid. In this study,
particular attention was paid to estimate electrical and thermal
energy ows. First, AD process estimated to provide a daily electrical surplus production of 9896 KWhel day1 and a heat surplus of
13,351 kWhth day1 (Fig. 3). The heat surplus produced through
AD was enough to fully cover the drying step of the solid digestate
for further implementation in pyrolysis reactor.

F. Monlau et al. / Applied Energy 148 (2015) 3238

37

Fig. 3. Energy balance of coupled anaerobic digestion and pyrolysis on one-day running process (adapted from [18]).

By utilizing gas and liquid biofuels derived from digestate

pyrolysis, a daily electrical production of 754 kWhel day1 and
4481 KWhel day1 for gas and bio-oil, respectively, is expected.
Considering a daily electrical requirement of 1065 kWhel day1
for the pelletizing step, coupling AD and pyrolysis process can lead
to a daily production of 14,066 kWhel day1, which corresponds to
an increase of 42% compared with stand-alone AD process. The
electric energy produced can be sold to the public grid at a xed
rate. Assuming kWh price equal to 0.28 kWh1
el , which is a price
given by the governmental incentive policy for biogas energy in
Italy [38], an extra income of 1168 per day could be achieved
by coupling AD with pyrolysis.
Besides the advantage of bioenergy production, pyrolysis generated 2.32 t of biochar, daily. Biochar produced through pyrolysis of
digestate could be used as energy source, low-cost adsorbent, soil
improver, carbon sequestration and climate impact mitigator
[19,25,27]. Recently, biochar was used as soil improver in order
to preserve the fragile soil quality, which is a practice in line with
the principle of ecology and sustainable agriculture [18,20].
Indeed, biochar used as soil fertilizer has been shown to increase
water and nutrients retention in soil [39,40]. The agronomic aspect
of using biochar as soil conditioner will be investigated in a future
work.
4. Conclusions
By a hybrid dual system, coupling anaerobic digestion with
digestate pyrolysis, the following can be achieved:
 The amount of heat produced during anaerobic digestion is sufcient to cover the energy needs for the solid digestate drying.
 The symbiosis of anaerobic digestion with pyrolysis can result
into an increased electricity gain (42%), compared to the
stand-alone anaerobic digestion plant.
Thus, the proposed hybrid dual system seems a promising technology not only for increasing energy recovery from agricultural

residues but also for enhancing sustainability of anaerobic digestion. However, prior to any commercial application, a pilot scale
implementation is needed along with verication of benecial
properties of char as soil amendment.
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the European Commission,
Directorate-General for Research & Innovation, for funding the project STAR AgroEnergy (FP7 Regpot 2011-1, Grant Agreement No.
286269). Authors are grateful to the owner of the biogas plant for
providing characteristics and production data.
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