Production of biogas and other value substances from organic waste

Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology

Biotechnological processes can be established economically and ecologically advantageous for the substance recycling along with waste treatment. The center of interest hereby is the use of anaerobic or substance producing aerobic microorganisms. The best known substance recycling process of organic materials such as bio-waste or sewage sludge (as a kind of residual bio-mass) is the recovery of biogas as a renewable energy source.

By integrating further appropriate process steps, additional value substances such as fertilizer salts (from nitrogen and phosphate ingredients of sludge, sludge water and waste) can be recovered.

Fields of research

  • Energy-efficient sewage treatment – High-load digestion of sewage sludge
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  • The process: Two-stage high-load digestion
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  • Residues of olive oil production
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  • Direct utilization of biogas without storage
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Good to know

  • Biogas as recycling product from anaerobic digestion of organic materials
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  • Interview with the technical manager of the Heidelberg Sewage Association on the cooperation
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Projects

  • Integration of a high-load stage for sludge digestion in a conventional sewage plant
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  • High-load sludge digestion with micro-filtration, ammonia stripping and MAP recovery
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  • Digestion of municipal waste: Two-stage digestion with integrated micro-filtration an additional aerobic stage
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  • Anaerobic treatment of organic waste – example from Brazil
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  • ETAMAX: Driving with biogas from biowaste
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  • Brazilian vehicle fleet drives on bio-methane from the sewage plant
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  • Optimized digestion of algae biomass by modeling and simulation
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Services

For 25 years the Fraunhofer IGB has been developing biotechnological processes for the treatment of water and waste – from the microbiological fundamentals to a technical and pilot scale plant:

  • Processes for aerobic and anaerobic wastewater purification
  • Substance recycling from wastewater
  • Analyses of sewage plants for enhancement of energy efficiency
  • Filtration technology for the treatment of wastewater and sewage sludge
  • Analyses of sewage sludge fermentation to determine design parameters
  • Individual, cost-saving extension of sewage treatment plants

Equipment