Track: Environmental Engineering

Abstract

The energy sector is in constant search of new clean sources of energy, both to supplement its production, as well as to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and its gradual replacement based on sustainable development methods. In this context, municipal waste is considered as a renewable energy source, since they have a high biomass content (paper, cardboard, food waste, wood, straw, leaves). A renewable source alternative with great prospects for the future is the use and energetic valuation of municipal solid waste. This research aims at the design of a lab-scale biodigester for the energetic industrialization of municipal solid waste, serving as a basis for the construction of a prototype on a pilot scale or a plant for the anaerobic treatment of these generated wastes. In this way, it will be possible to recover the energy contained in them, in order to reduce the flow of the waste destined to the landfills and to provide a production rate for the obtaining of biogas, taking as fundamental basis for the calculations of design and the improvement of laboratory-level production, through co-digestion with other types of organic waste and use of alkaline inoculating substances and determination of the most appropriate anaerobic digestion technology for waste treatment municipal solids.