Digestate management in Flanders: nutrient removal versus nutrient recovery

Intensive livestock production combined with limited availability of land for manure disposal and fertilisation restrictions by the EU-legislation make Flanders (Belgium) a 100% Nitrate Vulnerable Zone. The Flemish Manure Decree has been implemented in order to take measures against nitrate and phosphate pollution in water, resulting from the produced nutrient excess. From the 39 anaerobic digestion plants operational in Flanders, most of the installations are co-digestion plants that process an input mixture of animal manure, organic waste streams and energy crops. According to the Manure Dec... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Lebuf, Viooltje
Vanelsacker, Sara
Accoe, Frederik
Vaneeckhaute, Céline
Meers, Erik
Michels, Evi
Dokumenttyp: conference
Erscheinungsdatum: 2013
Verlag/Hrsg.: IBBK Fachgruppe Biogas
Schlagwörter: Earth and Environmental Sciences / nutrient recovery / Digestate processing
Sprache: Englisch
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-27086210
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
Powered By: BASE
Link(s) : https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/4115300

Intensive livestock production combined with limited availability of land for manure disposal and fertilisation restrictions by the EU-legislation make Flanders (Belgium) a 100% Nitrate Vulnerable Zone. The Flemish Manure Decree has been implemented in order to take measures against nitrate and phosphate pollution in water, resulting from the produced nutrient excess. From the 39 anaerobic digestion plants operational in Flanders, most of the installations are co-digestion plants that process an input mixture of animal manure, organic waste streams and energy crops. According to the Manure Decree however, digestate from co-digestion plants that take in manure also has the status of animal manure, and application on arable land is limited by the 170 kg N/ha/y restriction. For this reason, digestate from anaerobic digestion plants competes with manure for nutrient disposal on arable land, which forms a serious hinder for the biogas sector to develop in these regions. Hence, one of the biggest challenges for anaerobic digestion plants in a region like Flanders, is to find cost-effective and sustainable ways for digestate processing or disposal. In the framework of the ongoing Interreg NWE project ARBOR, VCM, Ghent University and Inagro investigate the options for nutrient recovery from digestate. This paper gives an overview, both of the currently applied techniques for digestate processing in Flanders, as well as the techniques that enable nutrient recovery from digestate. It also focuses on the physicochemical characteristics of the end-products, and the potential constraints for successful valorisation.