This book focuses on agricultural waste treatment and renewable energy production from the perspective of anaerobic digestion. It covers topics on anaerobic digestion processes and practices in various types of biogas plant construction and management and systematically addresses the principle and main features of three kinds of anaerobic digestion systems: household digesters, biogas septic tanks, and biogas plants. Instructive, informative and easy to understand, the book offers a valuable asset for researchers, technicians, graduate students and managerial personnel working in the areas of renewable energy, agricultural ecological engineering and the treatment and utilization of agricultural wastes.

Provides complete coverage of the recovery of mineral nutrients from biomass and organic waste This book presents a comprehensive overview of the potential for mineral recovery from wastes, addressing technological issues as well as economic, ecological, and agronomic full-scale field assessments. It serves as a complete reference work for experts in the field and provides teaching material for future experts specializing in environmental technology sectors. Biorefinery of Inorganics: Recovering Mineral Nutrients from Biomass and Organic Waste starts by explaining the concept of using anaerobic digestion as a biorefinery for production of an energy carrier in addition to mineral secondary resources. It then discusses the current state of mineral fertilizer use throughout the world, offering readers a complete look at the resource availability and energy intensity. Technical aspects of mineral recovery organic (waste-)streams is discussed next, followed by an examination of the economics of biobased products and their mineral counterparts. The book also covers the environmental impact assessment of the production and use of bio-based fertilizers; modelling and optimization of nutrient recovery from wastes; and more. Discusses global production and consumption of mineral fertilizers Introduces technologies for the recovery of mineral NPK from organic wastes and residues Covers chemical characterization and speciation of refined secondary resources, and shows readers how to assess biobased mineral resources Discusses applications of recovered minerals in the inorganic chemistry sector Compares the economics of biobased products with current fossil-based counterparts Offers an ecological assessment of introducing biobased products in the current fertilizer industry Edited by leading experts in the field Biorefinery of Inorganics: Recovering Mineral Nutrients from Biomass and Organic Waste is an ideal book for scientists, environmental engineers, and end-users in the agro-industry, the waste industry, water and wastewater treatment, and agriculture. It will also be of great benefit to policy makers and regulators working in these fields.

Comprehensive resource highlighting the global significance of biogas and reviewing the current status of biogas production. Biogas Plants presents an overview of biogas production, starting from the substrates (characteristics, pretreatment, and storage), addressing technical and technological aspects of fermentation processes, and covering the environmental and agricultural significance of obtained digestate. Written by a team of experts with extensive theoretical and practical experience in the areas of bio-waste, biogas plants, and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, Biogas Plants discusses keys topics including: Anaerobic digestion, including discussion of substrates and products Advantages of biogas plants, with emphasis on their future potential for stable and controlled renewable energy Global significance of the biogas sector, including its importance in electro-energy system stabilization, biogas plants for energy storage, bio-waste utilization, and biomethane production A thorough and complete resource on the subject, Biogas Plants will appeal to academic researchers and industry scientists and engineers working in the fields of biogas, bio-waste, bioenergy, renewable resources, waste management and carbon reduction, along with process engineers, environmental engineers, biotechnologists, and agricultural scientists. For more information on the Wiley Series in Renewable Resources, visit www.wiley.com/go/rrs

Waste Management and the Environment VIII contains papers present at the 8th International Conference on Waste Management and the Environment, organised every two years by the Wessex Institute. The contents were contributed by professionals, researchers, government departments and local authorities and cover the current situation of waste management. Waste Management is one of the key problems of modern society due to the ever-expanding volume and complexity of discarded domestic and industrial waste. There is a need to establish better practices and safer solutions for waste disposal. This requires further investigation into disposal methods and recycling, as well as new technologies to monitor waste disposal sites, clean technologies, waste monitoring, public and corporate awareness and general education. Unfortunately many of the policies adopted in the past were aimed at short-term solutions without regard to the long-term implications on health and the environment, leading in many cases to the need to take difficult and expensive remedial action. The development of sustainable strategies is the preferred trend for Waste Management. The approach which has emerged as the most promising has been called 4Rs, where reduction, reuse, recycling and recovery (including the sale of waste as Secondary Raw Materials (SRM) and of Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF)) are seen as the best actions. This largely decreases the volume of waste that needs final disposal. Contents cover such topics as: Environmental impact; Reduce, reuse, recycle and recovery (4Rs); Waste incineration and gasification; Energy from waste; Industrial waste management; Hazardous waste; Agricultural waste; Wastewater; eWaste; Landfill optimisation and mining; Remote sensing; Thermal treatment; Emergent pollutants; Environmental remediation; Direct and indirect pre-treatment of MSW; Disposal of high-level radioactive waste; Legislation; Behavioural issues.

This volume compiles state-of-the-art scientific knowledge on the technologies that are used to quantify and reduce the environmental impact of livestock production in the cattle, pig and poultry industries. It makes a serious statement about how such technology can contribute to the sustainability of the livestock industry in the future. As the global livestock sector is growing, modern farm animal production is increasingly regarded as a source of solid, liquid, gaseous and dust emissions, which can be both nuisance and environmentally harmful. In light of hardening regulations and social pressure, there is increasing interest in scientific research on air pollution and emissions from livestock operations. The present chapters focus on methodology improvement, harmonization of measurements, and modeling aspects. Key aspects, such as renewable energy sources, nutritional approaches to reduce enteric methane emissions, technical options for manure management, and the use of sensors, are covered. By sharing good practices, this book is a valuable reference for a diverse readership. Experts across the veterinary and animal sciences, agricultural engineering, the food industry and sustainability research will benefit from the findings.

This book provides a synthesis of current agricultural research in Africa with the aim of presenting evidence based information that can be directly applied into improving the African smallholder farmers’ food security. It presents positive scientific research that has been undertaken in Africa, in simpler terms, thus driving the research for development agenda contributing to the attainment of SDG 2. Numerous research that targets resource poor African smallholder farmers has been published, yet the region faces very low productivity levels. This lack of translation from research to food security and increased agricultural incomes is due to the poor uptake of scientific research by farmers, which is partly due to poor presentation of this body of knowledge into simpler forms that extension workers and farmers can directly adopt. Therefore, this book offers research information in an easy, digestible and application oriented style, so as to enable transformation of the African agricultural sector by effectively driving agricultural productivity in Africa. This book is of interest to African extension workers, who will translate the simplified knowledge into lessons that can be useful to smallholder farmers. The book is also beneficial for policy makers as well as academics, researchers and other science based professionals.

This book presents the dynamic role of algae in a sustainable environment. Two major aspects, namely bioenergy and bioremediation, have been elaborated in various chapter contributed by scientists and teachers from different geographical areas throughout the world. Algal biofuels is an emerging area of equal interest to researchers, industries, and policy makers working or focusing on alternative (i.e. renewable) fuels. Algae have been an area of interest due to their wide range of applications. Over the last 5 decades, eukaryotic algae have been used in the aquaculture industry as feed for invertebrates, providing a rich source of antioxidants, dietary fiber, minerals and protein. More recently, there has been a focus on the use of algal biomass in the development of alternative fuels. The extraction of oil from algae has been widely explored as a much more viable feedstock than plant-based oils in large-scale fuel production. using algae as feedstock has the advantages that it doesn’t require arable land and that wastewater can be used as a source of nutrients in their culture. The multifunctional approach of algae includes pollution remediation, carbon sequestration, biofuels production, and delivery of value-added products. However, there are still some obstacles that need to be overcome to make their use as potential feedstock for biofuels techno-economically feasible. In order to maintain the sustainability aspect of algal biofuels, various aspects have to be studied and critically analyzed to assess the long-term sustainability of algal derived biofuels. This book discusses the role of algae as a promising future feedstock for biofuels. They are known to sequester carbon in much larger amounts than plants and as such the book also describes their phycoremediation potential for conventional as well as emerging contaminants. It describes the role of anaerobic digestion in algal biorefineries; bioreactions and process parameters; biogas recovery and reuse. The role of algal biofilm based technology in wastewater treatment and transforming waste into bio-products is discussed, and remediation of sewage water through algae is assessed. The book also describes the production of biohydrogen, bio-oil, biodiesel; and the major bottlenecks in their usage. The emerging characterization techniques of these biofuels (bio-oil and biodiesel) are described, as are the decolorizing potential of algae and the genetic engineering techniques that could enhance the production of lipids in algae. Other aspects of the book include the role of remote sensing technology in the monitoring of algae and a life cycle assessment of algal biofuels.