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This paper examines common barriers limiting the implementation of small-scale biogas systems in rural Southern Africa through a literature study and a case study of six small-scale biogas digesters installed in Maputo province in Mozambique. The study strives to understand why the implementation rate of small-scale biogas systems in rural Southern Africa is so limited despite favourable conditions. The literature study identified several common barriers to the successful implementation of small-scale biogas in rural Southern Africa related to financial, technical, socio-cultural, and institutional issues. The case study results show that only one digester was operational, and five failed and were abandoned. Low technical ability of constructors results in poor-quality installations. Lack of technological know-how and local capacity for operation and maintenance of digesters are primary reasons for the failure of the digesters. Possible solutions are to intensify research, demonstration, dissemination and application of small-scale biogas; adapt the design of biogas digesters to the local context, meeting the needs of users and using locally available materials; sharing knowledge and information about small-scale biogas technology and its potential would contribute to improving the rate of successful implementation in Southern Africa.

This study investigates the environmental and economic impact of integrating hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) in horse farms to produce hydrochar with potential environmental and economic benefits as a fertilizer. The results indicate that HTC has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and eutrophication impacts compared to traditional methods. Despite the high CAPEX making the HTC integration economically unfeasible, the system can become viable if hydrochar is used instead of purchased fertilizers and if the capital investment is reduced by 54%. To realize these environmental and economic benefits, financial support to lower the initial investment will be required. In addition, further R&D and increased demand for small-to-medium scale HTC can reduce capital cost.

This study investigates the benefits and limitations of small-scale biogas technology at the household level in rural Sub-Saharan Africa. A literature study and a case study were done to explore if small-scale biogas production is a viable source of electricity in rural Sub-Saharan Africa. The results show that using cattle manure as feedstock requires a daily substrate flow of 750 L of the diluted substrate, i.e. 250 kg of manure and 500 L of water for a 24-hour electricity supply, using a 2-kW generator. This requires a minimum herd size of 25 cattle. Most households don’t have so many cattle. However, a herd of 10 cattle provides enough biogas to power several electrical appliances, significantly improving the household's energy situation. The study concludes that the uptake of biogas technology in Sub-Saharan Africa is slow. Common barriers include inadequate substrate supply, lack of water and variable temperatures, high initial costs, poor technical quality, intense labour operations and maintenance, and insufficient policy support. Improved uptake of biogas technology in Sub-Saharan Africa requires establishing national institutional frameworks and supporting policies, collaboration with the intended users of the technology and local support organisations, ensuring long-term local availability of spare parts and supplies, and, when household-level access to feedstock is limited, centralise biogas systems on the village level to combine feedstock into one production system.

This article summarizes and performs a systematic analysis using experimental results from recent research on ammonium recovery from aqueous sources using biochar. Numerous studies have focused on using different materials to produce biochar adsorbents, and many have attempted to draw conclusions about the physical or chemical characteristics that dominate the adsorption to infer the mechanism. However, to date, there has not been statistical analysis performed on a large set of adsorption data and physical/chemical characteristics of chars to be able to draw conclusions about ammonium adsorption mechanisms. From this analysis, it was found that consistency in experimental methods and characteristic measurement reporting is lacking, and therefore it is difficult to perform metadata analysis and draw conclusions about ammonium adsorption on biochar. Among the important factors influencing ammonia recovery proposed in literature, the meta-analysis only strongly supports the effect of BET surface area and NH4+ concentration, with weaker support for the importance of cation exchange capacity and pyrolysis temperature. This suggests that standard procedures for biochar production, experiments and analysis of physical and chemical characteristics are needed to usefully compare results across different studies. Examples of the present difficulty in identifying trends across studies are shown by comparing clusters in the data identified by the analysis. The ability to make such comparisons would provide clearer direction in how best to further improve the adsorption capacity of biochars.

The impact of pyrochar, hydrochar and lignite addition on anaerobic digestion of food waste was investigated with and without ammonia inhibition under batch conditions. Furthermore, ammonium adsorption capacities of the chars were investigated. To determine anaerobic degradation of char, reference samples containing inoculum and char were analyzed, indicating a significant degradation of hydrochar. Depending on the evaluation method, the increase in methane yield due to hydrochar addition varied between no statistically significant difference and +14 %. No significant impact due to the addition of 5 g/l pyrochar and lignite on AD was found. NH4+ adsorption capacities showed a significantly higher net adsorption capacity of lignite (1.58 mgNH4+/gL), compared to pyrochar (0.63 mgNH4+/gPC). A negative NH4+ adsorption capacity (−0.51 mgNH4+/gHC) was found for hydrochar. A high H/C-ratio, O/C-ratio and cation exchange capacity of hydrochar and lignite indicate many functional groups and low chemical stability, enabling an increased interaction between NH4+ and char.

Rapporten beskriver etablerade och nya tekniker för kväveåtervinning ur avloppsvatten, och jämföråtervinningsmetoderna med andra sätt att tillverka kvävegödsel när det gäller klimatpåverkan ochkostnader. Rapporten innehåller också en kort genomgång av möjligheter för återvinning av kalium ochsvavel och en statusuppdatering av metoder för återvinning av fosfor.

The report describes established and new technologies for nitrogen recovery from wastewater andcompares the nitrogen recovery methods with other ways of producing nitrogen fertilizer in terms ofclimate impact and costs. The report also includes a brief review of opportunities for potassium andsulfur recovery and a status update of phosphorus recovery methods.

In this study, we investigated the biomethane potential of cassava peels from the four most common varieties of cassava grown in Inhambane Province in Mozambique, Chinhembue, Cussi, Cizangara and Nhassumbi. Agro-wastes from coconut wood and jambolan wood processing were also analyzed to give a complete analysis of the most significant sources of agro-waste in the province. The macromolecular composition (carbohydrates, lipids and proteins) was determined and used to calculate the theoretical maximum biochemical methane potential (BMP). The results show that cassava fiber and cassava peel, which are considered to be waste, are viable resources for biomethane production. Further, the results show that cassava fiber and cassava peel have a higher biomethane potential compared with sawdust, and are therefore more suitable for biomethane production. A study to investigate the effect of toxic cyanogenic glycosides and lignin on cassava peels, using pre-treatment techniques to enhance biogas yield, should be carried out. An estimate of how much electricity can be generated based on the availability of agro-waste (cassava residues) and the amount of biomethane produced in our laboratory experiment was carried out. The amount of electricity that can be produced is enough to provide a valuable contribution to the production process in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and in the cassava industry, or some other use in the rural setting. 

The aims of this research are to enhance industry-university collaboration and to design learning experiences connecting the research front to practitioners. We present an empirical study with a qualitative approach involving teachers who gathered data from newly developed advanced level courses in artificial intelligence, energy, environmental, and systems engineering. The study is part of FutureE, an academic development project over 3 years involving 12 courses. The project, as well as this study, is part of a cross-disciplinary collaboration effort. Empirical data comes from course evaluations, course analysis, teacher workshops, and semi-structured interviews with selected students, who are also professionals. This paper will discuss course design and course implementation by presenting dilemmas and paradoxes. Flexibility is key for the completion of studies while working. Academia needs to develop new ways to offer flexible education for students from a professional context, but still fulfil high quality standards and regulations as an academic institution. Student-to-student interactions are often suggested as necessary for qualified learning, and students support this idea but will often not commit to it during courses. Other dilemmas are micro-sized learning versus vast knowledge, flexibility versus deadlines as motivating factors, and feedback hunger versus hesitation to share work. Furthermore, we present the challenges of providing equivalent online experience to practical in-person labs. On a structural level, dilemmas appear in the communication between university management and teachers. These dilemmas are often the result of a culture designed for traditional campus education. We suggest a user-oriented approach to solve these dilemmas, which involves changes in teacher roles, culture, and processes. The findings will be relevant for teachers designing and running courses aiming to attract professionals. They will also be relevant for university management, building a strategy for lifelong e-learning based on co-creation with industry.

The concerns about climate change, energy security and price fluctuation of fossil fuels are driving the growing interest in the development and utilization of renewable energy as a transportation fuel. In this aspect, the utilization of organic household waste for the production of biogas avoids the environmental impact of landfills. The further upgrading and utilization of biogas as a vehicle fuel avoids the environmental impact of fossil fuels. This paper presents the life cycle assessment of two utilization pathways of biogas produced from co-digestion of organic household waste, grease trap removal sludge and ley crops grown by local farmers. Specifically, this study assessed and compared the environmental impact of the production and utilization of bio-methane and biogas-based electricity as a vehicle fuel for public transport buses in Vasteras, Sweden. The system boundary for biogas production covered seven main steps: cultivation, harvesting and transport of ley crops, collection and transport of waste, pre-treatment and co-digestion of the substrate. The system boundary for bio-methane was further extended to account for the upgrading process and tailpipe emissions from combustion of bio-methane in the buses. In the case of biogas-based electricity, the system boundary was further extended to account for the combustion of biogas in the CHP unit and further utilization of electricity in the electric bus. The evaluation of the production routes showed that the methane losses and high energy consumption for both biogas production and upgrading process dominated the environmental impact of bio-methane production. However, the emissions from the CHP unit were solely responsible for the environmental impact of biogas-based electricity production. The functional unit identified for this study is 1 vehicle km travelled (VKT) of the bio-methane fuelled bus and electric bus. The global warming potential of the electric buses was 0.11 kg CO2-eq/VKT compared to 0.26 kg CO2-eq/VKT for the bio-methane buses. The electric buses could also reduce about half of the acidification and eutrophication impacts associated with the bio-methane fuelled buses. The lower fuel efficiency and high tailpipe emissions decreased the environmental advantages of the bio-methane buses. Eventually, this study ensures the biogas utilization which is environmentally sound and compares favourably with the alternative options. [GRAPHICS] .

Nitrogen recovery is the next step in the improvement of the wastewater treatment process, utilizing this important nutrient for fertilizers to decrease use of energy, petrochemicals, and impact on the environment. The majority of wastewater treatment plants currently employ methods to remove nitrogen which are energy intensive and have no additional benefits besides complying with effluent concentration limits. Instead, recovering nitrogen allows simultaneous treatment of wastewater while collecting a concentrated ammonia product, creating a circular economy solution. This review acts to compile current research regarding nitrogen recovery and compare different techniques' recovery efficiencies and energy requirements. One outcome of this review is that more than one third of the techniques reviewed had little comments around the energy question, and thus more research needs to take place as these recovery systems continue to evolve towards full scale implementation. Additionally, a basic economic analysis was completed to demonstrate potential investment opportunities to implement these technologies. From this investigation, gas permeable membrane technology has the potential to recover ammonia from wastewater using little energy and may provide a small income with the sale of the product. Other techniques such as vacuum membrane distillation with acid absorption need further validation to determine the energy costs, as the amount of heat recycling has a great impact on the overall energy and economic balances. Finally, a discussion of the misalignment of products from recovery techniques and fertilizers in use today highlights the lack of communication and information sharing between the research community and the end users.