Laboratory scale anaerobic digestion at the Italian Biomass Research Centre

Anaerobic digestion is becoming an important source for renewable methane production when disposing of residual biomasses. Nevertheless few data are available in the Literature for mass and energy balances for different feedstocks, which are of great interest both for feasibility studies and design of power plant. This paper describes the ongoing activities at the Italian Biomass Research Centre on anaerobic digestion, from preliminary results with batch glass vessels on the Lake algae to the design and construction of a laboratory scale monitored steel digester and of its gas-meter.