Development of agri-food waste biogas system as an alternative energy source for local farm product processing unit

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In Thunder Bay, at present, less than three percent of the food waste is separated and treated. This is done primarily through composting. The rest is disposed of in landfills. An obvious alternate that is being considered is the utilization of these organic wastes for energy and manure production. 'Belluz farms' located in Thunder Bay, is interested in onsite production of biogas using its agricultural, food processing wastes generated at its facilities and those produced at local restaurants it supplies. This scheme has been limited by (a) the cost, scale and size of the commercially available systems which can work under their production, utilization and recycle conditions and (b) the non-homogeneous nature of wastes used to produce biogas. Therefore, they are interested in research which would lead to the construction of an innovative onsite biogas system (anaerobic) using nonhomogenous local farm/food wastes. This will bring them direct benefits in terms of energy cost-savings, waste management, nutrient recovery and compost production. The main technical challenge will be to optimize biogas production using non-homogenous farm/food wastes. In order to realize high methane yield in the biogas, it is planned to initially explore the effects of mixing various types of food waste generated at Belluz Farms in different proportions. The main objective of the study including characterization of wastes as well as optimization of biogas production will be carried out at the Biorefining Research Institute (BRI) at Lakehead University. The research studies will determine the digestibility of food wastes individually and as mixtures under mesophilic and thermophillic conditions. The digestibility will be evaluated in terms of biogas and methane yields and volatile solids reduction. The results will aid Belluz Fram in designing an on-farm-biogas-system that uses local feedstock to produce high quality biogas for heat and energy and meet their energy demands. In addition, designing the biogas system and obtained results will contribute to applied research that will make such systems more accessible to similar farm scale operations.