THERMAL SCIENCE

International Scientific Journal

Zorka Novak Pintarič

,

Miloš Bogataj

,

Bojan Pahor

,

Marjana Simonič

PRELIMINARY DESIGN OF OPTIMIZED HEAT INTEGRATED TWO-STAGE VACUUM EVAPORATION FOR PROCESSING DIGESTATE FROM BIOGAS PLANT

ABSTRACT
This work presents a preliminary design of a two-stage vacuum evaporation process converting a diluted liquid digestate into concentrated liquid fertilizers. Di-gestate is produced in a 1 MW biogas plant during the anaerobic digestion of poultry manure and corn silage. Laboratory experiments showed that in the first evaporation stage, about three-quarters of input digestate can be stripped to a diluted ammonia solution, while the concentrate can be used as phospho-rus-potassium PK-fertilizer. After neutralization with H2SO4, the ammonium sulphate solution is concentrated in the second evaporation stage. Feasible operating temperatures that allow heat integration between the two stages were determined in a laboratory environment at 40 ºC for the first stage and 60 ºC for the second. A preliminary process flow sheet was simulated in Aspen Plus to obtain data for heat integration and optimization of industrial-scale processes. The process was completely integrated by using the waste hot utility available at the site, while the external utilities demand was virtually zero. Optimizing the flow rate of the added sulphuric acid improved overall economic performance. The optimization and heat integration of the two-stage vacuum evaporation process within a biogas plant resulted in a circular and economically viable waste management technology.
KEYWORDS
digestate, biogas, vacuum evaporation, ammonium sulfate, heat integration
PAPER SUBMITTED: 2020-04-01
PAPER REVISED: 2020-05-12
PAPER ACCEPTED: 2020-05-30
PUBLISHED ONLINE: 2020-09-26
DOI REFERENCE: https://doi.org/10.2298/TSCI200401283N
CITATION EXPORT: view in browser or download as text file
THERMAL SCIENCE YEAR 2020, VOLUME 24, ISSUE Issue 6, PAGES [3637 - 3648]
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Preliminary design of optimized heat integrated two-stage vacuum evaporation for processing digestate from biogas plant

© 2024 Society of Thermal Engineers of Serbia. Published by the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences, National Institute of the Republic of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International licence