BIOKOP

Energetic and material coupling of a biogas plant with a biorefinery

Duration
01.12.2020 - 30.11.2023

The concept of the University of Hohenheim is based on the biorefinery coupling with a biogas plant, more precisely the CHP of this. In this project, such an energetic and a full material coupling shall be worked out. This is to be developed first for the experimental station "Unterer Lindenhof" and then generalized.The concept includes an agricultural biorefinery that produces decentralized locally produced biomass in platform chemicals. The focus is on agricultural biomass from which 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), furfural and lignin are produced.A more general concept is being developed based on the Lower Linden Farm. The key questions here are:What throughput can/must a biorefinery have when coupling an existing biogas plant? Or the other way around: if there is an existing residual biomass, how big does the associated biogas plant have to be? What do the nutrient flows look like then? Are there undesirable side effects, e.g. with regard to biodiversity?These questions will be investigated for several scenarios, whereby the influence of the type of feeding of the biogas plants and the area required for production, as well as the type of residual biomass, will be included as key variables. Ultimately, the overall potential for Germany will be estimated in this way.The combination of biorefineries with biogas plants will be carried out with the programs AspenPlus and MATLAB.