Aikan Technology
methane and compost production from organic resources
Morten Brøgger Kristensen
Chief Technology Officer
Aikan is innovated from experience
• Solum has been operating the Danish Aikan plant “BioVækst”
successfully for more than 10 Years
• 150.000 ton of separately collected municipal solid waste has
been transformed to biogas and compost
• BioVækst is a 50/50 split private public partnership based on
well defined roles and common decisions
• We have been focusing on creation of value through
development of: environmental performance, robustness and
great flexibility
• We collaborate with leading Danish universities on many
research and development issues to keep a science based
approach
Four Danish ministers of environment have paid
attention to us; including the present European
commissionaire for climate
We are focused on a strategy for waste
Avoid
Reduce
Waste Hierarchy Strategy
Reuse
Recover
Incineration with energy recovery
Dispose (Landfill)
Recycling with energy
recovery
Fra affald til værdi
Aikan Technology
The Aikan Technology Process
Solid organic matter is
made soluble by
microbial enzymatic
degradation
Volatile organic matter is
transformed to methane
by bacteria
Resistant organic matter
is sanitized and
transformed into
Compost
Layout for a complete Aikan plant for
anaerobic digestion and composting
Scalable modular designs
• Reception and pre-treatment; flexible pre-treatment
• Process modules; 10-20-30-more
• Reactor tank capacity; 1500-3000-6000 - more
• Maturation boxes; 5-10-more
• Odor treatment; module based too
• Energy exploitation units; gas-upgrading; CHP etc.
Mass balances in general
what goes in comes out!
• All in- and outputs must be analyzed for Organic
Solids, Non-Organic Solids and Water
• Harmful substances or chemical components must
always be accounted for or separated by an efficient
collection schemes
• Plant performance must account for output products
and outlets to the environment
• Standard mass balance figures does not exist. We
always base a mass balance on feedstock
characterizing since:
Mass is Money!
Aikan products and energy from 1 MG of
Biodegradable Municipal Solid Waste (BMSW)
•
80 Nm3 biogas (70 % methane), waste potential is 180 Nm3 biogas
•
Biogas is flexible:
– Production and sale of electricity and heat (up to 50/50)
– Upgrading to Methane for transportation etc.
– Grid transportation to other energy supplier etc.
•
350 kg of 0-10 mm compost
– Good organic fertilizer with high content of NPK
– Sanitized
– Reduced risk of odor problems
– Stabilized organic matter
A mass balance
based on data from the Danish plant
Water
Massbalance
Organic Dry Matter
Non-Organic Dry Matter
17% Residual Waste for other treatment *
Residual Waste for other treatment *
(3.400 ton)
Biogas
(1.700 ton)
3,9%
44%
67%
Solid Waste and Feedstock
(20.000 ton)
Pre-treatment
88%
88%
12%
12%
28%
42%
30%
5%
65%
30%
50%
53%
36%
32%
14%
15%
In processmodules
(24.900 ton)
Degasified biomass
(23.200 ton)
0%
0,0%
0,0%
7%
63%
30%
Recycled Structurematerials
(4.980 ton)
* Plastics, Metals, Glass, Stones and RDF
49%
Composting in Process
Modules
34%
17%
Compost
(6.620 ton)
19%
Composting in Maturation
Boxes
Fresh (sanitized, not mature compost)
(20.880 ton)
51%
30%
Screening of
compost
Compost with structure
(11.600 ton)
0%
Fertilizer
(0 ton)
0,0%
0,0%
0%
0,0%
0,0%
To reaktortank
(0 ton)
Slurry or other fluid
feedstocks
(0 ton)
Via ventilationair
(9.280 ton)
27%
6%
Structure material
(3.320 ton)
96,1%
50%
6%
Via ventilationair
(2.320 ton)
Biogas Phase
7%
63%
30%
Recycled
Structurematerials
(4.980 kg)
Odor Management
• Odor is an inevitable subject linked to degradation of
volatile organic matter
• To avoid trouble with neighbors and subsequently
authorities odor must have the highest priority
• Managing Odor must be based on a twofold strategy:
– Planning for a well-designed Plant
– Getting a well-functioning and educated operation team
Aikan Odor Management
• Enclosed system for both biogas and compost production
• Integrated treatment of exhaust air from reception, critical
workspaces and all processes via vaporizer and bio-filtration
• Registered odor levels for all the individual steps has been build
into the odor management system
• Education and training of staff prior to start up
• Operation manual with equal focus on production and odor
management
Ongoing R&D activities in 2014
• Hydrolysis improvements; 2StageBiogas project
– Enhancing from 80 m3 towards 180 m3 of biogas
• Full integration with wet systems for manure (or
sewage) treatment; Aikan Agri®
• Testing new feedstock at our full scale, trail facilities
in Denmark
• Testing biogas potential of specific wastes
2StageBiogas
a project with “Aalborg University Copenhagen”
supported by “EnerginetDK”
• Target to reach 80% of theoretical potentials of the
first step hydrolysis
– Different preparation methods for the waste
– Different process regimes
– Enzyme addition
– Variation of Temperature during hydrolysis
• To be published 2015
Aikan Agri®
Standard Wet System
Additional Aikan Agri
Components
Report from the Danish EPA to be found at
http://mst.dk/service/publikationer/publikationsarkiv/2014/aug/aikan-agri/
Basic understanding of feedstock
Waste Composition
100
80
Water Content
Mineral Dry Matter
Not Biodegradable Organic matter
60
Biodegradeable Organic Matter
40
20
0
per ton of BOD
per ton of VS
per ton of TS
per ton of waste
Biogas Methane Biogas Methane Biogas Methane Biogas Methane
643
450
514
360
450
315
180
126
Biowaste management strategies
• Source Separation: of biowaste or separation of:
plastics, glass, metals, painted wood, cloth, rubber,
electronics, batteries etc. etc.
– To gain quality recycling source separation is needed for
some fractions
• Since 50-60 % of MSW is often Biowaste it´s a good
place to start.
The sustainability of proper Biowaste handling
Biowaste is carbon dioxide fixation from the air and nutrient fixation from
the soil made possible by the power of the sun – thus a truly
renewable resource
•
A clean fraction of biowaste is producing good quality compost
•
Phosphor is essential to food production and known clean mineral
deposits will only last for 40-120 years – thus it is now time to recycle
•
All resources are getting scarcer day by day. Thus the price of good
recycled products will increase
•
Biogas is a flexible energy form that can be used for transportation,
electricity production and stored
•
Compost recycles phosphor, nitrogen, potassium and other nutrients,
postpone CO2 release to the atmosphere and ease soil structure
Summarizing Aikan Technology features
o Proven Technology
more than 10 years of concrete operating
experience
o Competitive price level
negotiations have shown that Aikan compete nicely
with other systems
o Unique design
protected 3 step process integrating AD and
Composting
o Robust
can handle even MSW due to a simple tough preand after-treatment
o Scalable
the modular design secure that no present extra
investments needed to secure future needs
o Flexible
can be optimized to local price structure focusing
on the most valuable in- and output streams
o Biogas
at least 70% of methane
o Compost
The remaining solids are sanitized and matured
o Effective space utilization
A complete handling of all waste streams gives an
optimal, integrated use of space
o Odor Management
Built-In odor management system, based on
experience and analysis