The PIFAP project deals with the volatile fatty acid (VFA) production from agricultural residues through anaerobic digestion (AD) using Oscillatory Baffled Reactor (OBR) technology. The PIFAP technology concept includes different non-conventional energy sources such as microwave (MW), plasma, ultrasound for the process optimisation and intensification. In the pre-treatment, cold plasma technology will be employed to generate Ozone which will be used to separate most of the lignin part (ozonolysis) from the feedstock. The combined use Ozone, MW and ultrasound (sonication) will create synergistic impact on the pre-treatment process performance to selectively separate lignin which will increase the performance and efficiencies of the downstream processes i.e., AD in this case. In PIFAP, the AD process will be of two-stage. In the first stage, through enzymatic hydrolysis (using OBR), cellulose and hemicellulose part of the feedstock will be converted to simple sugar. In the second or last stage, through acidogenesis (using OBR), sugar will be converted to VFAs.
The integration of MW, plasma, ultrasound in the PIFAP technology will enhance the operational flexibility of the plant to produce VFAs from agricultural residues and the plant will be able to cope with the fluctuating nature of the grid through upscaling or downscaling the production without sacrificing the quality and efficiency. The integration of non-conventional energy sources in the PIFAP technology, will make it cost, resource and energy efficient.
The PIFAP technology concept can be delivered through containerised solution with scalability and replicability. The PIFAP enabled plant can produce VFAs from wide ranges of agricultural residues with variability in composition and water content. Moreover, this technology concept can be used in other areas such as handling of: organic fraction of municipal solid waste, waste water from pulp and paper industries, organic waste from food drink industries
