Responsible for the topic:  PD Dr. sc. agr. Bernd Linke ( Dept. 1)

Team: Dr. Monika Heiermann (Dept. 2), Pia Mähnert (Dept. 1), Jan Mumme (Dept. 1), Prof. Dr. Christian Fürll (Dept. 3), Dr. Michael Klocke (Dept. 1), Dr. Meno Türk (Dept. 5), Dr. Philipp Grundmann (Dept. 2),

Processing and conversion
Energy crops are used in practice to an increasing degree for biogas production because of their reliability and high biogas yields. Feeding of the fermenter with such energy rich substrates is carried out mostly on empirical base so that basic knowledge with respect to biochemistry and technology is essential.

Particularly, data are missing with regard to pre-treatment of energy crops, organic loading rate of the fermenter, microbiology/ process control, optimal technology for different substrate qualities and for technology assessment. With respect to required optimisation of existing systems for slurry fermentation and for development of new technologies for anaerobic digestion of energy crops with consideration of solid state anaerobic digestion the following aims are pursued:

• - analysis of microbial diversity in methanogenic substrates by means of molecular- genetic methods

• - hydrolysis for improvement of biodegradability

• - kinetic analysis for anaerobic digestion of energy crops in slurry fermentation systems

• - elaboration of basics for solid state anaerobic digestion

• - analysis and technological optimisation of full-scale biogas plants

User of the research results are planners and/or operators of biogas plants, political and economical advisors and colleagues on the field of biogas production

Research structure (overview)