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International Scientific Conference “Environmental and Climate Technologies”, CONECT 2018

International Scientific Conference “Environmental and Climate Technologies”, CONECT 2018
Design of a biogas plant fed with Cladophora Sp. algae
Design
Theof
15tha International
biogas plant fed with
Symposium Cladophora
on District Heating andSp. algae
Cooling
and wheat straw
Assessing the feasibilityand wheat straw
of using the heat demand-outdoor
Massimiliano Dorellaa, Francesco Romagnolib, Arturs Grudulsb, Massimo Collottaa,
temperature function
Massimiliano Dorellaa forGiuseppe
a Romagnoli
, Francesco long-termb district
, Arturs
Tomasoni a heatb, demand
* Gruduls forecast
Massimo Collottaa
,
a,b,c
Giuseppe Tomasonia*
I. Andrić Univeristaa degli studi di Brescia,
a Via Branze 38,bBrescia, 25123, Italy
*, A. Pina , P. Ferrão , J. Fournier ., B. Lacarrière , O. Le Corre
a c c
b
Institute of Energy Systems
a and Environment,
Univerista degli studi di Riga Technical
Brescia, University,
Via Branze Azenes25123,
38, Brescia, iela 12/1,
ItalyRiga, LV-1048, Latvia
IN+ CenterInstitute of Energy Systems andandEnvironment, Riga-Technical University, AzenesAv.
iela 12/1, Riga, LV-1048, Latvia
a b
for Innovation, Technology Policy Research Instituto Superior Técnico, Rovisco Pais 1, 1049-001 Lisbon, Portugal
b
Veolia Recherche & Innovation, 291 Avenue Dreyfous Daniel, 78520 Limay, France
c
Département Systèmes Énergétiques et Environnement - IMT Atlantique, 4 rue Alfred Kastler, 44300 Nantes, France
Abstract
Abstract
The blooming of biogas plant installation undergoing wet anaerobic digestion processes is an evident trend at EU condition.
Abstract
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Keywords: biogas; plant The values
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straw; Cladophora; used to energy
modify the function parameters for the scenarios considered, and
improve the
Keywords: accuracy
biogas; of heatwheat
plant design; demandstraw;estimations.
Cladophora; renewable energy

© 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Peer-review under responsibility of the Scientific Committee of The 15th International Symposium on District Heating and
* Corresponding author.
Cooling.
giuseppe.tomasoni@unibs.it
E-mail address:author.
* Corresponding
E-mail address:
Keywords: giuseppe.tomasoni@unibs.it
Heat demand; Forecast; Climate change
1876-6102 © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
This is an open
1876-6102 access
© 2018 Thearticle under
Authors. the CC BY-NC-ND
Published license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
by Elsevier Ltd.
Selection
This is an and
openpeer-review under
access article responsibility
under of the scientific
the CC BY-NC-ND licensecommittee of the International Scientific Conference ‘Environmental and Climate
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Technologies’, CONECT 2018.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International Scientific Conference ‘Environmental and Climate
1876-6102 © 2017
Technologies’, CONECTThe Authors.
2018. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
1876-6102  2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Peer-review under responsibility of the Scientific Committee of The 15th International Symposium on District Heating and Cooling.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International Scientific Conference ‘Environmental and
Climate Technologies’, CONECT 2018.
10.1016/j.egypro.2018.07.046
 Massimiliano Dorella et al. / Energy Procedia 147 (2018) 458–466 459
2 Author name / Energy Procedia 00 (2018) 000–000

1. Introduction

The environment is seriously threatened by the modern human practices, especially by energy production and
transports. The global warming is only one of the numerous issues to manage and specifically it is mainly due to the
CO2 air emissions brought by the massive employment of fossil fuels. Biofuels, i.e. fuels produced by biomass,
seem to be an interesting solution in order to replace, at least partly, this source of energy and consequently reducing
greenhouse gases emissions [1] and the global warming effect [2, 3]. In the last decades, much attention has been
paid to the development of innovative solutions to improve the sustainability of biofuels, both as regards the
biomass transformation processes, and as regards the plant engineering solutions necessary to operate such
processes on a large scale; these innovative solutions concern a large set of cases, such as biodiesel from microalgae
[4, 5], butanol from food and agricultural waste [6], biogas from macroalgae [7] or from silage [8]. In effect, the use
of alternative type of feedstocks like seaweeds becomes the core of fundamental research within the last decade [9].
With reference to biogas energy, biomass employed can be the biodegradable fraction of products, residues from
agriculture (including vegetal and animal substances), forestry and related industries, as well as industrial and
municipal waste and novel type of feedstock non-competing with food production. In the biogas process, the critical
element is represented by the ‘digester’, in which biodegradable fraction of biomass is fermented. For this reason,
the pretreatments adopted the temperature and the size of the biomass play a fundamental role in the optimization of
the biomass energy process.
In this paper, based on the available literature around the topic of design and sizing of a biogas plant [10, 11], and
on interviews with practitioners in the field, the design of all the system components of a biogas plant fed with
Cladophora Sp. algae and wheat straw is reported. The kinetical analysis of the digestion and the biomethane
potential of the biomass employed have been determined based on a set of experiments lead by the authors. The
scope of the presented case study is to help fill the gap identified in literature and take a step towards defining
standards and benchmarks for the sector and to provide a step-by-step approach for biogas plant design.

2. Methodology

The biogas plant is designed according to literature references [3, 10]. The design phase and the adopted
quantitative approach are undergoing the following steps: kinetical analysis of the biomass degradation, selection of
size of the plant, definition of the volume of the digester, definition of the hydraulic retention time (HRT) and the
daily feedstock flow rate, design of the each single components of the plant.
The kinetical analysis aimed to understand the degradation dynamics has been initially proposed: it consists on
the evaluation of the dynamics of the degradation function of each substrate through an exponential regression
analysis. After the regression, the kinetical constant (k) has been calculated which is needed for setting the other
parameters for the plant design.
After the kinetical analysis, the two main variables on which the design of the digester depends have been
calculated: daily feedstock flow rate (qv) and volume of the reactor (Vr).
All these variables are calculated depending on the hydraulic retention time (HRT) so, for instance, if an HRT of
10 days has been assumed, a certain volume of the digester (Vr) and feedstock flow rate (qv) have to be set. If
instead 25 days of HRT have been assumed the Vr and the qv are different by the case of 10 days of HRT. Therefore,
the series of Vr and qv for each day of HRT (from 1 to 30) have been calculated. These variables have direct
influence on each other in a feedback loop; the aim is to fix a correct HRT and therefore, as consequence, define the
volume of the digester (Vr) and the daily feedstock flow rate (qv). Once set the theoretical volume of the digester and
the daily flow rate, all the components of typical biogas plant are designed: gasholder, agitators, silos for storing the
substrates, preparation tank, grinding pump, residue storage tank, digestate pumping system.

2.1. Kinetical analysis

To set up the kinetical analysis the Biomethane Potential (BMP) of the biomass to employ is needed [11] to be
evaluated. In this case, the co-digestion of the Baltic Sea Weeds Cladophora with Italian wheat straw from North
Italy region has been tested. The experiments, made at the Biosystems Laboratory of the Institute of Energy Systems
460 Massimiliano Dorella et al. / Energy Procedia 147 (2018) 458–466
Author name / Energy Procedia 00 (2018) 000–000 3

and Environment at the Riga Technical University, showed a value of 463 l CH4/kgVS. This has been further used for
the exponential regression: the purpose is to evaluate trough an exponential behavior the empirical BMP curve of
the selected substrate trough the minimization of the medium square error (MSE) between the measured and the
predicted values [12]. The biomethane production curve follows the following first order formula due to the absence
of phase lag in the biodegradation processes [11].

Y = Ymax  (1 – e –kt ) (1)

where
Y cumulated methane yield at time;
Ymax ultimate methane yield (i.e. 463 l CH4/kgVS);
k first order kinetical degradation constant;
t retention time.

Once calculated the empirical behavior for 30 days (the same period of the test) the following steps have been
conducted to estimate k by fitting the measured BMP to predicted BMP by using the Microsoft Excel 2013 Solver
function: calculate the error for each day (Y-test); calculate the square error for each day (SE); set a random k as
input; calculate the medium square error (MSE) with the formula:

1 n
MSE   (Yi  test i ) 2
n - 1 i 1
(2)

where
n number of days;
Yi forecast day i;
testi measurement of the day i.

Set the excel solver aimed to minimize the MSE with the cell containing the value of k set as variable; run the
solver.

2.2. Selection of the theoretical digester volume

At the beginning it is necessary to decide the size of the plant, in this case the digester that produces biogas was
set for a CHP capacity of 500 kWe. After it is possible to design the bioreactor that needs to satisfy the biomethane
request to feed the CHP unit. At this stage three factors need to be considered for the design: digester volume (Vr);
daily feedstock flow rate (qv); hydraulic retention time (HRT).
Technically both the digester volume and the daily feedstock flow rate have to be minimized in terms of
economic feasibility (the bigger the reactor and the higher the flow rate, the more expensive is the plant). The HRT
depends on both factors, in fact the higher is the HRT the lower is the volume of the daily flow rate (at constant Vr)
and the higher is the volume of the reactor the bigger is the HRT (at constant qv).
According to Zhang et al. [3], the digester volume function needs some steps to be built: A) calculate the specific
methane yield or CH4 production rate (γv) for each day of retention time (30 days); B) calculate the volume of the
reactor for each day of retention time (30 days); C) calculate the daily feedstock flow rate for each day of retention
time (30 days); D) plot the functions in one figure; E) choose the appropriate HRT and so the Vr and the qv are now
set.
The step A, i.e. the definition of the specific methane yield, is based on the following formula according to [3]:

B0  S 0  k 
v  1   (3)
HRT   m  HRT  1  k 

 Massimiliano Dorella et al. / Energy Procedia 147 (2018) 458–466 461
4 Author name / Energy Procedia 00 (2018) 000–000

where
B0 ultimate methane yield (in this case 463 l CH4/ kgVS);
S0 influent total volatile solids concentration (set as 60 gVS/l of feeding which is a typical choice for the biogas
plants);
HRT hydraulic retention time (days);
k first order kinetical constant (outcome of the kinetical analysis, set as 0.152);
µm a parameter calculated with the following formula according to [3] where Tr is the temperature of the
reactor set as 37 °C (i.e. mesophilic conditions):

 m  0.013  Tr  0.129 (4)

For each day of HRT (up to a period of 30 days) it is calculated the volume of the digester, the volume of the
reactor based on the calculated HRT (step B) (from formulas 7 and 8) and finally the daily feedstock flow rate
(step C). Thus, the outputs are plotted in terms of γv, Vr and qv depending of the HRT selected. Now it is necessary
to calculate the volume of methane to produce (Eq. (5)) according to [3]. The request of methane depends on the
installed capacity of the CHP unit, which in this case is selected equals to 500 kWel.

 
QCH 4,demand   el 
V   100  (5)
LHVCH 4

where
QCH4,demand total daily energy output requested by the engine (m3 CH4/day);
LHVCH4 lower heating value of methane (35.9 MJ/m3 or 10 KWh/m3);
hel electrical efficiency (i.e. 31.5 %).

For the calculation of the total daily energy output requested, the formula is the following according to [3]:

 LC 
Pe     Wh
QCH 4,demand   100  (6)
365

where
Pe installed capacity (500 kWel);
LC load capacity (80 %);
Wh working hours.

Now it is possible to calculate the volume of the digester and the daily feedstock flow rate with the Eq. (7) and
Eq. (8) respectively according to [3].

V (7)
Vr 
v
Vr (8)
qv 
24  HRT

At this point, it is possible to create 30 different cases depending on 30 different possible choices of HRT, and
then decide which of these has to be set. Afterword the theoretical digester volume, the daily feedstock flow rate can
be selected together with the HRT to further design the other components of the plant.
462 Massimiliano Dorella et al. / Energy Procedia 147 (2018) 458–466
Author name / Energy Procedia 00 (2018) 000–000 5

3. Plant design and results

The result of the kinetical analysis is a forecast that fits as best as possible the test and gives back the value of the
k constant which is needed for the successive analysis. In figure 1a, the result of the kinetical fitting after the solver
solution is showed.

(a) (b)

Fig. 1. (a) Kinetic fitting of the methane yield measures plotted with methane yield predicted; (b) variation of Vr and qv with HRT.

The kinetic fitting shows that the forecast is very near to the BMP, highlighting the correct selection of a first
order gas production curve. The final value of the constant of degradation is 0.152.
At this point, it is possible to calculate the theoretical biogas plant and the daily feedstock flow rate for 30 days of
possible choices of HRT. In Table 1, the cases for HRT respectively equal to 19, 20 and 21 are shown, with the
relative values of CH4 production rate (γv), digester volume (Vr) and daily feedstock flow rate (qv).
Now it is possible to plot these functions in order to make a correct choice of HRT, which involves both
quantitative and qualitative considerations.

Table 1. CH4 production rate (γv), digester volume (Vr) and the daily feedstock flow rate (qv)
for specific HRT values.
HRT, days γv, m3 CH4/m3 Vr, m3 qv, m3/h
digestor day
19 1,42 1819 3,99
20 1,36 1912 3,98
21 1,29 2004 3,98

Fig. 1(b) shows that the feedstock flow rate decreases with the growing HRT and reaches a plateau at day 10 with
a value of about 4 m3/h. At this point some considerations have to be done in order to complete the final step E.
The reason of decreasing qv is because with a higher HRT the same amount of inoculum need more time to be
degraded in the digester with a lower value of the daily refilling needed. The volume of the digester instead is
proportional to the HRT and it grows almost constantly until 2841 m3. The reason for increasing the volume of the
reactor is because if the same amount of inoculum remains more days in the reactor with constant feeding, a larger
reactor would be necessary. If Vr and qv had the same measure unit, the choice of the HRT would be the minimum
of the vertical sum of the two data. Nevertheless, Vr and qv depend both on HRT and they influence each other, so
this figure helps in understanding what is the qualitatively the best choice. Choosing a short HRT doesn’t help,
because qv didn’t reach the plateau and so it is an inefficient choice in terms of feedstock flow rate. Moreover, the
inoculum needs at least 15 days to be digested in a significant percentage, so a short HRT could lead to a waste of
 Massimiliano Dorella et al. / Energy Procedia 147 (2018) 458–466 463
6 Author name / Energy Procedia 00 (2018) 000–000

nutrients. Also, choosing a long HRT is inefficient in terms of Vr because it becomes too high. In general, for the
above reasons, in real biogas plants the HRT is set between 18 and 22 days. Therefore, in the end, the HRT is set to
20 days and this choice leads to the a Vr of 1912 m3 and a qv of 3,98 m3/day. Once set Vr and qv, it is possible to
design all the other components of the plant as reported in the following.

3.1 Bioreactor

As mentioned, the Vr calculated (1912 m3) is the net volume of the bioreactor calculated according to Zhang et al.
[3] without the headspace. Through the adoption of a safety factor of 1.25, the headspace can be calculated, thus
having a gross volume of the bioreactor of 2389 m3. Further assuming a width-to-height ratio equal to 1:2 the
diameter and the height of the digester can be defined respectively equal to 11m and 5,5m.

3.2 Agitators

Agitators are necessary in order to guarantee the correct mixing of the inoculum in the bioreactor. This is a key
aspect to avoid the floating and thus the accumulation of the lignocellulosic substrate on liquid surface inside the
digester and to guarantee an efficient fermentation through a proper and homogeneous nutrient mixing. Two
agitators have been considered suitable for the designed plant with a power (Pa) defined as follows.

   na  (9)
Pa  N e       Da
5

 30 

where
Ne Newton number (0.5);
ρ density of the substrate (1000 kg/m3);
na number of revolutions (150 rpm);
Da diameter of the propeller (0.6 m).

The power needed for each agitator is 200 kW. The agitator chosen is movable with a vertical excursion so it’s
possible to orient it in the desired direction.

3.3 Gasholder

The gasholder has been designed to be a part of the digester considered with cone shape (i.e. internal gas
storage). Positioned on the top of the bioreactor, it consists in a flexible “breathing” membrane that covers the
digester and swells gradually with the biogas production. Every 4 hours, the biogas is sent to the cogeneration unit
and the gasholder deflates to the original volume. To calculate the volume of the gasholder, the hourly biogas
production (Vbiogas) and the volume that can be stored in the headspace (Vheadspace) considered as the gross volume of
the digester minus the net volume of the digester.

VCH 4
Vbiogas  (10)
CH 4 rate

where
Vbiogas biogas hourly production, m3/h;
VCH4 methane hourly production, m3/h;
CH4rate percentage of methane in the biogas (estimated 55 %).

The methane hourly production (VCH4) is estimated using the BMP for a HRT 20 days. It is calculated as follows:
464 Massimiliano Dorella et al. / Energy Procedia 147 (2018) 458–466
Author name / Energy Procedia 00 (2018) 000–000 7

S 0  Vr  BMP20 days
VCH 4  (11)
20  1000  24

where
BMP20days BMP obtained from the test at the 20th day (441 l CH4/kgVS);
S0 influent total volatile solids concentration (set as 60 gVS/l);
Vr net volume of the digester (1912 m3).

Using Eq. (11), the VCH4 is 2532 m3/h with a calculated Vbiogas according to formula 10 equal to 153 m3/h.
The total storage volume needed is then defined assuming 5 hours of storage time (i.e. 767 m3). With an Vheadspace
equal to 488 m3. Finally, the volume of the gasholder is the volume of biogas produced in 5 hours (767 m3) minus
the headspace and it is equal to 280 m3. The diameter of the gasholder is fixed equal to the bioreactor (15 m)
because it has the base adjacent to its top. Consequently, the maximum height of the cone-shaped gasholder results
to be equal to 4.8 m.

3.4 Silos

The silos for the substrate storage (in this specific case assuming wheat straw and Cladophora) are calculated as
follows:

Vsilos  AWR   (12)

where
AWR annual wet request of the substrate, kg/year;
Ρ density of the substrate, kg/m3.

The volume of silos for Cladophora is 447 m3, consequently 5 silos of 100 m3 would be sufficient. The required
storage volume for the wheat straw instead is 257 m3, meaning 3 silos of 100 m3.

3.5 Preparation tank

The volume of the preparation tank (Vpt) is calculated taking into account of the amount of inoculum hourly
needed and the number of hours it has to remain into the preparation tank (i.e. 10 days). It is estimated as follows:

V pt  qv  f oversize  t pt (13)

where
qv daily feedstock flow rate;
foversize oversize safety factor (1.25);
tpt time in preparation tank (240 h).

Assuming a height-to-width ratio of 2:1 results in a tank with a diameter of 3 m and a height of 6 m.

3.6 Grinding pump

A grinding pump is needed in the preparation phase in order to send the feedstock to the bioreactor. The design of
this pump is based on two main requirements: A) assure the daily feeding (the throughput of the pump has to be
higher than the daily feedstock flow rate); B) assure of being capable of filling the empty digester in 10 hours, for
economic reasons; in fact, if the digester remains empty for a long time it would generate a significant economic
loss. According to the calculation the power needed is respectively equal to 0.22 kW for the case A and 13.3 kW for
 Massimiliano Dorella et al. / Energy Procedia 147 (2018) 458–466 465
8 Author name / Energy Procedia 00 (2018) 000–000

the case B. Since both conditions have to be respected, the second case is the one to be considered because it
requires more power. A grinding pump of 15 kW has been chosen.

3.7 Residue storage tank

The residue storage tank is necessary in order to stock the digestate before being employed for fertilization.
The residue storage tank has been designed in such a way to guarantee the storage of the digestate for the whole
winter period (100 days). Specifically, the following formulas has been adopted:

Vrs  qv  1  D fb  t max  f oversize (14)

where
qv daily feedstock flow rate;
Dfb digestate feedback (portion of digestate re-sent to the bioreactor, assumed 2.5 m3/day);
foversize oversize factor (assumed to be 1.1);
tmax maximum time of detention (100 days).

After the calculation, the volume of the residue storage tank is 163 m3. The height-to-width ratio used is 1:2 thus
resulting in a diameter of 7.6 m and an height 3.8 m.

3.8 Digestate pump

The digestate pump can be designed like the grinding pump but taking into account a higher coefficient of
performance (ηp = 0.6) due to the absence of the grinder. The design of this pump need to consider two
requirements: A) the power of the digestate pump (Pd1) has to assure the daily discharging flow and B) the digestate
pump has to assure to empty the digester in 10 hours, for safety reasons. The used formulas are expressed below:

Case A: Pd 1 
qv  Psh  100 (15)
3600   p

 Vr 
   P 100
 t  sh
Case B: Pd 2   fill 
(16)
3600  p

where
qv daily feedstock flow rate;
Psh pressure head suction (1 bar);
ηp coefficient of performance of the pump;
tfill time to refill the bioreactor (assumed to be 10 hours).

In case A, the power needed is 0.18 kW while in the case B is 11.1 kW. Since both conditions have to be
respected, the second case is the one to be considered as more power is required. A centrifugal pump of 15 kW has
been chosen.

4. Discussion and conclusions

In this paper, based on the kinetical analysis and BMP determined through a set of experiments lead by the
authors at the Riga Technical University, we have discussed the design of the whole biogas plant fed with
466 Massimiliano Dorella et al. / Energy Procedia 147 (2018) 458–466
Author name / Energy Procedia 00 (2018) 000–000 9

Cladophora Sp. algae and wheat straw operating with a digester of 2400 m3, a daily feedstock flow rate of 4 m3/day
and able to deliver enough biogas for a co-generator of 500 kWel.
The scientific literature on the biogas subject is very rich, but it can only partially support the design of a plant on
an industrial scale, both because not all the necessary knowledge is available, and because there is no procedural
guideline that can support the designer. This demonstrates that there is still need of scientific research in the field of
biogas plants.
In this paper, based on the kinetical analysis and BMP determined through a set of experiments lead by the
authors at the Riga Technical University, we have discussed the design of the whole biogas plant fed with
Cladophora Sp. algae and wheat straw operating with a digester of 2400 m3, a daily feedstock flow rate of 4 m3/day
and able to deliver enough biogas for a co-generator of 500 kWe.
The work carried out highlighted that the design of a biogas plant is a very complex activity; in particular, the
main factors determining such complexity were (a) the large number of components to be designed for the
implementation of the process phases, (b) the large number of parameters to be set for each phase, the fact that such
parameters are closely interconnected with each other and the fact that some of them are variable over time, such as
those related to the composition and characteristics of the biomass, (c) the need to optimize the plant from a
technical, economic and environmental point of view. In this aspect can be identified the novelty of the paper aiming
to cover the lack on step-by-step procedure for biogas plant design. Meantime the output from the design phase are
supported by an important laboratory research that is creating a key input within the design of the ideal biogas
digester size evaluating an overall initial BMP 463 l CH4/ kgVS from the seaweed Cladophora Sp.
In the results achieved, the information gathered by practitioners in the field played a relevant role; on the one
hand it allowed to define a complete step by step procedure for the design including all the main elements of the
plant, and on the other hand it allowed to validate the soundness of the system designed.

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