- Biogas plant
- waste industry
- Nature does not produce any
wastes. All by-products and final products of natural processes
are used in a continuous cycle of the composition and mineralization
of or-ganic substances. The biosphere has a high buffer potential
giving it a wide tolerance range for all natural products and
processes.
Only with the growth of human population and its economical activities, waste became a serious danger to the steady-state of the natural metabolic processes. With the continuous growth of the cities and the concentration of an increasing part of the population in municipal areas, a solution of the waste problem becomes more and more inevitable.
While a big part of the inorganic wastes - like glass, plastics, metals, etc. - meanwhile are being recycled, the biggest part of the organic waste fraction is still simply put on waste disposal sites. The uncontrolled decomposition of these materials adds another stress factor to our endangered environment. The partially anaerobic conditions cause gaseous emissions of carbondioxyd, ammonia and methane to the atmosphere, while the products of the mineralization processes contaminate the ground water with phosphates, nitrates, and other mineral salts, thus poisoning the basic resources of human life.
On the other hand, organic wastes contain significant energy potentials as well as valuable plant nutrients and the capability of improving and conserving agricultural soils. For these reasons, efforts have been taken during the last decades on the development of waste processing technologies which are ecologically safe and, at the same time, make use of the valuable components and characteristics of the materials.
Technologies which have been developed for the large-scale-processing of organic wastes are the composting and the anaerobic fermentation. Both methods have their specific advantages and disadvantages. The decision for one of these technologies can only be taken with regard to infrastructural, technical, and environmental conditions of the particular area.
A typical biogas plant by GBU
The sample is a biogas plant with a total input-capacity of 200.000 tons per year (10% dry matter- DM).
- Inputs:
manure, sewage sludge, biowaste
- Outputs: granulate - fertilizer (ca. 8.000 t/a), electricity (ca. 8,5 GWh/a), osmosis water (ca.180.000 m³/a)