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Possibilities and Limitations of Anaerobic Co-Digestion of Animal Manure—A Critical Review

Energies 2023 41 citations ? Citation count from OpenAlex, updated daily. May differ slightly from the publisher's own count. Score: 50 ? 0–100 AI score estimating relevance to the microplastics field. Papers below 30 are filtered from public browse.
Anna Jasińska, Anna Grosser, Erik Meers

Summary

This review critically evaluates the possibilities and limitations of anaerobic co-digestion of animal manure with various co-substrates, finding that combining materials can significantly improve biogas yield while enabling simultaneous processing of multiple waste streams.

Anaerobic digestion is a well-known and long-used biological method for stabilizing organic materials. Among the benefits of this process in waste management are the reduction of greenhouse gases, the production of alternative energy, and the acquisition of valuable digestate that can be used in the form of biogas, thereby closing the cycle of elements in nature. For some materials, such as manure, which is heterogeneous in terms of morphology and chemical composition, digestion of a single substrate may not be very efficient. Therefore, more and more studies on the co-digestion process are appearing in the literature. This solution allows higher biogas production and the possibility of processing several wastes simultaneously. The prospect of the future effective application of anaerobic co-digestion depends on regulations, work regime, and access to raw materials. Therefore, there is a need to systematize the available knowledge and results, as well as to identify the possibilities and limitations of the discussed process, which is undertaken in this paper.

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