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

在雷霆湾，目前，只有不到百分之三的食物垃圾被分离和处理。这主要是通过堆肥来实现的。其余的则被填埋。正在考虑的一个明显的替代办法是利用这些有机废物生产能源和肥料。位于雷霆湾的“贝鲁兹农场”对利用其设施产生的农业、食品加工废物和其供应的当地餐馆产生的废物现场生产沼气感兴趣。该方案受到以下因素的限制：（a）可以在其生产、利用和再循环条件下工作的商业上可获得的系统的成本、规模和大小，以及（B）用于生产沼气的废物的非均质性质。因此，他们对研究感兴趣，这将导致一个创新的现场沼气系统（厌氧）的建设使用非同质的当地农场/食品废物。这将在节约能源成本、废物管理、养分回收和堆肥生产方面给他们带来直接好处。主要的技术挑战将是使用非同质的农场/食物废物优化沼气生产。为了实现沼气的高甲烷产量，计划初步探索将Belluz农场产生的各种食物垃圾以不同比例混合的效果。该研究的主要目标，包括废物的表征以及沼气生产的优化将在生物精炼研究所（BRI）在湖首大学进行。这些研究将确定在嗜温和嗜热条件下单独和混合食物废物的消化率。消化率将根据沼气和甲烷产量以及挥发性固体减少量进行评估。研究结果将有助于Belluz弗拉姆设计一个农场沼气系统，该系统使用当地原料生产高质量的沼气，用于热能和能源，并满足他们的能源需求。此外，沼气系统的设计和获得的结果将有助于应用研究，使这种系统更容易进入类似的农场规模的业务。

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.