Approximately one third of the greenhouse gas emission is associated to agriculture, from fertilizer manufacture, improper agricultural waste handling to food storage and packaging. Non proper treatment of agricultural waste is assumed to be a major factor.
Anaerobic digestion (AD) is considered to be an excellent technology for agricultural waste stabilization/treatment and renewable energy carrier production. However, the overall economic value of the produced methane is rather low, especially compared to the potential value of the waste streams. In this project, various agricultural waste products and different strategies will be investigated to enable a shift in the treatment process from AD to anaerobic fermentation, which will lead to the production of carboxylates with a higher economic value.
The transition of conventional AD to stable carboxylate production by means of anaerobic fermentation requires addressing several challenges, i.e. methanogenesis inhibition, substrate recalcitrance, product specificity and product inhibition; which will be the main focus of the carboxAiD project. Biomimicry of the gut system of animals specialized on fiber-rich diet, such as ruminants and insects, including ways of pre-treatment of the lignocellulose, will provide additional hints and solutions for the biorefinery concept of carboxAiD.