The AmbiGAS project has the following objectives:
– To characterise selected under-exploited industrial effluent streams that could benefit from the use of anaerobic treatment to meet appropriate environmental standards while allowing energy production and reducing the need for energy-intensive aerobic systems.
– To develop psychrophilic and psychro-tolerant methanogenic consortia in order to exploit their special characteristics in high-rate engineered processes
– To determine the ability of these low-temperature anaerobic consortia to degrade under-exploited low-strength effluents with a range of characteristics, from highly degradable (food and beverage manufacturing) to more recalcitrant (forest industry).
– To further develop and characterise immobilised cell systems suitable for use with low-temperature acclimated methanogenic consortia in low-temperature, high-volume applications, including granular bed, biofilm and anaerobic contact processes but with the main research emphasis on membrane reactors.
– To develop effective low-energy methods for recovery of methane dissolved in low-temperature effluents using novel in situ and/or downstream membrane-based systems
– To integrate these with biogas upgrading systems for production of fuel-grade methane while avoiding process losses and environmental impacts caused by methane solubility
– To further develop Anaerobic Digestion Model 1 (ADM1) to permit effective modelling of low-temperature systems by determining the appropriate kinetic coefficients and input parameters
– To integrate the improved ADM1 kinetic model into a broad-based process optimisation tool using the Aspen Plus platform, to allow determination and optimisation of overall mass and energy balances for different industrial scenarios
– To use the integrated models to identify critical monitoring and control parameters for maximising energy yields without compromising operational stability
– To trial the developed low temperature AD systems with a number of low-strength industrial effluents (dairy, paper, brewery, ethanol production) at laboratory, pilot and technical scales in order to gather data for model validation and technology dissemination.