Harvest time and ensilage suitability of giant reed and miscanthus for bio-methane production and characterization of digestate for agronomic use
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Failid
Kuupäev
2018
Kättesaadav alates
Ajakirja pealkiri
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Kirjastaja
Abstrakt
In many countries, biogas plants are mainly fed by livestock slurry and dedicated crops,
including maize, which still represents one of the main energy crops utilized. Many concerns are
now arising on environmental impact due to the high water consumption, chemical fertilizer and
pesticide requirements and on adverse effect of maize as energy crop on the price of food and
feed commodities. For these reasons two perennial crops, in particular miscanthus (Miscanthus x
giganteus) and giant reed (Arundo donax L.), were cultivated at very low input and evaluated for
their bio-methane yield at different harvest times and ensilage suitability, in a north-eastern area
of Italy. Moreover, considering the agronomic use of the obtained digestate as fertilizer, this has
been characterized by the content of heavy metals. Both multi-annual crops have proved highly
productive in biomass especially with a harvest time in autumn, at which a satisfactory
completion of the silage process without additives was observed. Conversely, bio-methane yield
per hectare were not satisfactory with respect to the reference crops such as maize. The low BMP
attained showed the main bottleneck of the methanisation of ensiled giant-reed and miscanthus,
which is represented by fiber composition with high degree of lignification. The simulation use
of digestate obtained as fertilizer in vulnerable areas, could lead to slightly exceed the levels
allowed by the legislation of some European countries with regard of heavy metals as Cu, Zn
and Cd.
Kirjeldus
Article
Märksõnad
multiannual crops, biomass, silage, energy, bio-methane, digestate, articles