IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v15y2022i8p2901-d794589.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Exploiting Olive Mill Wastewater via Thermal Conversion of the Organic Matter into Gaseous Biofuel—A Case Study

Author

Listed:
  • Alfredo Crialesi

    (Dipartimento di Ingegneria Chimica Materiali Ambiente, “Sapienza” Università di Roma, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy)

  • Barbara Mazzarotta

    (Dipartimento di Ingegneria Chimica Materiali Ambiente, “Sapienza” Università di Roma, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy)

  • Marco Santalucia

    (Azienda Della Toffola S.p.A., Via Feltrina, 72, 31040 Signoressa di Trevignano, Italy)

  • Fabrizio Di Caprio

    (Dipartimento di Chimica, “Sapienza” Università di Roma, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy)

  • Alfonso Pozio

    (ENEA-TERIN, C.R. Casaccia, Via Anguillarese 301, 00123 Roma, Italy)

  • Alessia Santucci

    (ENEA-FSN, C.R. Frascati, Via Enrico Fermi, 45, 00044 Frascati, Italy)

  • Luca Farina

    (ENEA-FSN, C.R. Frascati, Via Enrico Fermi, 45, 00044 Frascati, Italy)

Abstract

Olive oil is one excellence of the Italian food industry: around 300 kt yr −1 are produced, creating roughly the same amount of olive mill wastewater (OMW) to be disposed of. The present work describes a process to exploit OMW by converting its organic compounds to valuable gaseous biofuel. A sample OMW was characterized (COD, TOC, solids, and polyphenols) and submitted to membrane filtration tests to concentrate the organic compounds. Based on the results of the experiments, a treatment process was outlined: the retentate streams from microfiltration and ultrafiltration steps were fed to a cracking and a steam reforming reactor, respectively; the obtained syngas streams were then mixed and sent to a methanation reactor. The process was simulated with Aspen Plus (AspenTech©) software, assessing operating conditions and streams compositions: the final biofuel is around 81 mol.% methane, 4 mol.% hydrogen, and 11 mol.% carbon dioxide. The permeate stream cannot be directly disposed of, but both its amount and its polluting charge are greatly reduced. The heat needed by the process, mainly due to the endothermic reactions, can be obtained by burning an amount of olive pomaces, roughly corresponding to one-third of the amount left by olive treatments giving rise to the processed OMW feed.

Suggested Citation

  • Alfredo Crialesi & Barbara Mazzarotta & Marco Santalucia & Fabrizio Di Caprio & Alfonso Pozio & Alessia Santucci & Luca Farina, 2022. "Exploiting Olive Mill Wastewater via Thermal Conversion of the Organic Matter into Gaseous Biofuel—A Case Study," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-14, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:15:y:2022:i:8:p:2901-:d:794589
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/8/2901/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/8/2901/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rocha, Cláudio & Soria, M.A. & Madeira, Luís M., 2022. "Use of Ni-containing catalysts for synthetic olive mill wastewater steam reforming," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 1329-1342.
    2. Rocha, Cláudio & Soria, M.A. & Madeira, Luís M., 2021. "Screening of commercial catalysts for steam reforming of olive mill wastewater," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 765-779.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Carvalho, João & Nogueira, Anabela & Castro-Silva, Sérgio & Rocha, Cláudio & Madeira, Luís M., 2023. "Process simulation and techno-economic analysis of olive oil mill wastewater steam reforming," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 278(PB).
    2. Cerqueira, Pedro & Soria, M.A. & Madeira, Luis M., 2023. "Valorization of olive mill wastewater via autothermal reforming for hydrogen production," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 219(P2).
    3. Macedo, M. Salomé & Soria, M.A. & Madeira, Luis M., 2021. "Process intensification for hydrogen production through glycerol steam reforming," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    4. Rocha, Cláudio & Soria, M.A. & Madeira, Luís M., 2022. "Use of Ni-containing catalysts for synthetic olive mill wastewater steam reforming," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 1329-1342.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:15:y:2022:i:8:p:2901-:d:794589. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.