Energy Enhancement of the Residues from the Cardoon Seeds Milling: Preliminary Experimentation in a Small Size Biogas Plant

The Biomass Research Centre of the University of Perugia has recently performed a “sustainability village” in an historical monastery. The village, based on the circular economy concepts, consists of installations of two renewable energy plants: a vegetable oil tri-generation plant equipped with seed milling and a mini biogas plant. The plants are integrated within the historical buildings and the village is also including a recently restored castle equipped with classrooms and bedrooms for summer school students, a canteen, offices, research labs and ICT rooms. In order to increase the sustainability of the pathway, new crops were tested in the experimental fields, such as the cardoon ones. The biomass residues of the milling facilities were sampled and analyzed in order to define the biogas yield for the energy enhancement. The preliminary results, both for energy characterization of biomass and the experimental tests in the mini biogas plant, are reported in the present work.