Wood Chip in Biodigester

[fen01]

A farm near me is installing a biodigester, which as got me thinking, would it take wood chip? I have had a look on the Bioplex website, but can't find the answer.

 

The farmer plans to use maize and manure as the 'fuel' to generate something like 50Mw (may well out but they need about 600 acres of maize to keep it going). What are peoples thoughts and experiences with wood chip as biodigester fuel? Would it be a useful addition the maize mix, and would the chip need to be allowed to rot down before it would be useful?

 

It would nice to know some facts before I rock up with an offer... and on the face of it, it would be a handy way of recuing my wood chip pile.

 

Cheers

 

Mark

[Breezeblock]

when you say it takes maize is it the whole plant or just the seeds i would think you should be able to put chip in as it starts to break down when its in the tipper producing heat almost straight away

[onyx landscaping/fencing]

you can put pretty much any organic matter through a biodigester some places are even putting dead animals through them on test trials

[onyx landscaping/fencing]

when you say it takes maize is it the whole plant or just the seeds i would think you should be able to put chip in as it starts to break down when its in the tipper producing heat almost straight away

 

you use the hole plant! bit of a waste rely putting good food in there when there is so much waste that could go through them

[Breezeblock]

you use the hole plant! bit of a waste rely putting good food in there when there is so much waste that could go through them

i wasn't sure i am curious about biodigester one off the local farmers is putting one in i would like to see it when its up and running

[fen01]

you use the hole plant! bit of a waste rely putting good food in there when there is so much waste that could go through them

 

Agreed, not sure about using what is basically food production to produce electricity. But in my case there are running alongside a cattle farm so use manure and waste from other farms.

[openspaceman]

A farm near me is installing a biodigester, which as got me thinking, would it take wood chip? I have had a look on the Bioplex website, but can't find the answer.

 

The farmer plans to use maize and manure as the 'fuel' to generate something like 50Mw (may well out but they need about 600 acres of maize to keep it going). What are peoples thoughts and experiences with wood chip as biodigester fuel? Would it be a useful addition the maize mix, and would the chip need to be allowed to rot down before it would be useful?

 

 

 

Oddly enough I was up at a friend's farm today, collecting a piece of kit for farmer Rod to try, and he put a digester in 4 years ago, 27,000 hrs on the MAN engine now putting 130kW into the grid on average.

 

He uses it to deal with his cow slurry and the wey from his cheese business plus he makes grass and maize silage for cows and digester. Today he was running it on sugar beet he had grown. He uses about 20% of the electricity on the farm and creamery and heats a number of buildings using surplus biogas.

 

The rub is the digester basically likes the same food cows do, it uses up what are called the volatile solids ( fats, sugars and starch basically) and sugar beet and maize have a lot of these, wood has essentially none but leaves will have a bit.

[MrNick]

I don't think the bacteria are able to digest lignin or cellulose. I'll ask the bosses son as he is involved in installing them.

[woodworm]

I have previously made enquiries about this and the answer from 3 different manufacturers has been a resounding NO !!

The lignin and cellulose comment was quite correct from what i remember.

They wouldn't even consider sawdust as a fuel for them.

[farmer rod]

e, wood has essentially none but leaves will have a bit.

 

it would be really cool if there was some way of sorting out the leaves for the AD and keeping the chips for biomass boilers