Bioenergy Production from Complex Wastewaters

摘要

Presently industrial wastewaters should be viewed as a resource instead of a waste. In particular the wastewater from dairy industries, when treated by anaerobic technology, have a high potential for bioenergy production that can be used for heating or electricity production. Traditionally anaerobic treatment systems were optimized in view of effluent purification and the produced biogas was only seen as a byproduct. This work shows the results of several investigations carried out with the objective of optimizing the energy production from dairy wastewater by means of anaerobic technology. The innovative aspect of this work lies on the use of a novel operating mode - intermittent operation - that allows the raising of energy yield around 25% in relation to what is obtained with conventional (continuous) systems with the same wastewater purification efficiencies. It has been shown by molecular characterization techniques that the intermittent operation mode causes a shift in the anaerobic microbiological population of the intermittent systems in relation to the population present in continuous systems allowing the development of species more adapted to the degradation of the wastewater components. By viewing the waste as an energy source this work contributes for the application of the European strategy for renewable energy and thus contributes to prevent global warming.