EUBCE 2026 - Jerónimo GONZÁLEZ CORTÉS - Biochar Decarbonizing Olive Mill Wastewater in a Two-stage Anaerobic Co-digestion Process to Obtain a Sustainable Agricultural Biofertilizer.

Biochar Decarbonizing Olive Mill Wastewater in a Two-stage Anaerobic Co-digestion Process to Obtain a Sustainable Agricultural Biofertilizer.

Short Introductive summary

Biochar is a carbonaceous material obtained from pyrolysis in an environment with limited oxygen content. As the main property, biochar has a good conductivity and porosity, and its cost is cheaper than other materials with similar characteristics. There are different authors that report the positive effects of biochar as supplement or co-substrate in anaerobic co-digestion process. Moreover, if this process is carried out in two-stage the hydrolysis (separated hydrolytic of methanogenic stage) for difficult feedstocks, as Olive Mill Wastewater (OMW) can be improved. A two-stage anaerobic digestion process has shown better performance in terms of methane yield and process stability as compared to single-stage. In addition, digestate obtained from anaerobic co-digestion can be used as biofertilizer. However, this biofertilizer due to the variety of raw materials employed in the previous process can cause instabilities in their fertilization capability. In this way, a digestate obtained from a feedstock composed by biochar can minimize this instability due to its high porosity.

A.I. Parralejo, Cicytex, Guadajira, SPAIN
L. Royano, Cicytex, Guadajira, SPAIN
M. Cordero, Cicytex, Guadajira, SPAIN
M.A. Mateos, Cicytex, Guadajira, SPAIN
J. González, Cicytex, Guadajira, SPAIN