There are numerous ways to produce renewable energy or simply to generate energy from the use of waste or materials that are already in disuse. For example, we transfer them to the pilot plant for wastewater treatment and biogas production that is developed within the LIFE WOGAnMBR project.
It is about being able to make and extract biogas from the waste of frozen croquettes and fried potatoes. Can we really generate energy by taking advantage of this type of waste?
Biogas extraction
The frozen food factory Eurofrits and the Matutano potato chips They have tested and are developing a technology that uses membranes to obtain and filter high-quality water. This water can be available for irrigation and the biogas generated in the process can be used for energy consumption in production plants.
For now, better results have been obtained in obtaining biogas in the Matutano plants. The two food industries have tested biogas generation using this pilot plant using AnMBR technology. Eurofrits, located in Pozuelo de Alarcón (Madrid), produces mainly frozen meat, chicken, fish, croquettes and potatoes and Matutano chips in Burgos.
Pilot plant project
The project is having good results in the pilot plants working with different organic loads. The biomass has performed well. It has been possible to reach 9.600 liters per day of biogas with a methane quality of 75%. This demonstrates the technical, economic and environmental viability of this type of project. The advantage it has is not only that it generates biogas for energy production, but it also filters the water that can be used for irrigation. The aim is to reduce sludge production as much as possible and establish itself as self-sufficient from an energy point of view.
In addition, this technique is adaptable to any process in the food industry, helping to reduce the consumption of raw materials and reducing the waste generated. With this membrane system an ultra-filtering of industrial wastewater is achieved that make it suitable for irrigation since all kinds of solid particles that cause clogging in the pipes disappear.