Applied Energy 204 (2017) 1074–1083

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Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

Enhancing biomethane production by integrating pyrolysis and

anaerobic digestion processes
Chaudhary Awais Salman a,⇑, Sebastian Schwede a, Eva Thorin a, Jinyue Yan a,b
a
School of Business, Society and Engineering, Mälardalen University, PO Box 883, SE-721 23 Västerås, Sweden
b
School of Chemical Science and Engineering, Royal Institute of Technology, SE 100 44 Stockholm, Sweden

h i g h l i g h t s

We simulate the coupling of pyrolysis and anaerobic digestion process.

Pyrolysis anaerobic digestion process integration shows combined efficiency of 67%.

The process integration produces 1.2-fold more biomethane than stand-alone process.

The cost of producing biomethane from waste is less than heat and power production.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The anaerobic digestion of source-separated organic waste is a mature and increasingly used process for
Received 9 February 2017 biomethane production. However, the efficient use of different fractions of waste is a big concern in
Received in revised form 7 April 2017 anaerobic digestion plants. This study proposes the use of a new process configuration that couples
Accepted 1 May 2017
the anaerobic digestion of biodegradable waste with the pyrolysis of lignocellulosic or green waste.
Available online 11 May 2017
The biochar obtained from pyrolysis was added to a digester as an adsorbent to increase the biomethane
content and to support the development of a stable microbial community. In addition, the bio-oil and
Keywords:
syngas produced by the pyrolysis process were reformed into syngas and then converted to biomethane
Green waste
Municipal solid waste
via methanation. Modelling and simulations were performed for the proposed novel process. The results
Aspen Plus showed an approximately 1.2-fold increase in the biomethane volume produced. An overall efficiency of
Process simulation 67% was achieved, whereas the stand-alone anaerobic digestion system had an efficiency of only 52%. The
Performance analysis results also indicated a high annual revenue for the integrated process compared to that for an alternative
Economic analysis treatment (incineration) of green waste.
Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Various technologies are under development – e.g., anaerobic

Biorefineries are gaining attention among researchers around
the world owing to the possibility of simultaneously valorising
diverse feedstocks and producing multiple products [1]. According
to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the
International Energy Agency (IEA), it is estimated that the total
share of biofuels in the transportation sector will increase to 10–
20% by 2030 [2]. Furthermore, large amounts of municipal solid
waste are still generated worldwide despite the concerns of many
countries and efforts to limit the production of waste. In 2013, the
global generation of municipal solid waste was estimated by the
World Bank to be approximately 1.3 billion tonnes, and this is
expected to increase to 2.2 billion tonnes per annum by 2025 [3].
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: chaudhary.awais.salman@mdh.se (C.A. Salman).
digestion, gasification, combustion, pyrolysis, etc. – to enable the
valorisation of the waste for useful and renewable products.
Anaerobic digestion is a technology that is widely used world-
wide to produce biogas from the biodegradable municipal solid
waste (MSW) collected primarily from households and municipal
districts [4]. MSW is composed of 30–70% organic matter, consist-
ing of food waste from kitchens, green waste from gardens and
plants, etc. [5]. Kitchen or food waste is highly biodegradable and
readily used as feedstock in anaerobic digestion plants. However,
approximately 30% of MSW is lignocellulosic green waste, which
is not suitable for the anaerobic digestion process [5]. Hence,
MSW is source-separated into biodegradable and non-
biodegradable fractions to utilise the biodegradable fraction via
anaerobic digestion. The remaining green waste must be utilised
via other processes, which include incineration for heat and power
production, thermochemical conversion via gasification or

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2017.05.006
0306-2619/Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 C.A. Salman et al. / Applied Energy 204 (2017) 1074–1083
Nomenclature
Abbreviations
AIC annualised investment cost
CEPCI chemical engineering plant cost index
CRF capital recovery factor
FCI fixed capital investment
LCOE levelised cost of energy
LHV low heating value
IEA International Energy Agency
IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
MSW municipal solid waste
NAP net annual profit
NPV net present value
O&M operating and maintenance cost
PSA pressure swing absorption
PBP payback period
ROR rate of return
TCI total capital investment
WCI working capital investment
Symbols
m mass flow rate (kg/s)
C cost (Euro)
pyrolysis, or composting to reduce the amount of waste without
further energetic utilisation.
Pyrolysis is an endothermic thermochemical process that con-
verts organic material into useful energy products [6]. The pyroly-
sis of biomass generates three main products: bio-oil, biochar, and
syngas. All the pyrolysis products are able to produce heat and
power both individually and simultaneously [7]. The bio-oil pro-
duced from pyrolysis can be treated as crude oil and converted into
liquid fuels as an alternative to fossil fuels [8]. Martin et al. [9]
studied the possibility of converting bio-oil and syngas to bio-
methane and found that the process is technically more feasible
than was the alternative of upgrading bio-oil to transport fuels
and other processes such as gasification and combustion.
Furthermore, the biochar obtained from pyrolysis can be used
in multiple ways, such as for carbon sequestration, as a soil condi-
tioner and as an adsorbent precursor [10]. The addition of biochar
to an anaerobic digester can increase the biomethane yield by
5–31%, as reported in various studies [11–15]. According to the
reviewed literature, the addition of biochar shortens the lag phase,
minimises ammonia-induced inhibition by acting as an adsorbent,
and increases alkaline behaviour, and thus biochar can be used to
increase the biomethane content in biogas by enabling the in situ
upgrading of a biogas [16]. Tobias et al. [17] went a step further
by putting the aqueous liquor obtained from digested pyrolysis
back into an anaerobic digester, and found that the aqueous liquor
obtained from pyrolysis is biodegradable and can be digested to
produce biogas. This example of the versatile nature and use of
pyrolysis products reveals a high potential for feasible and benefi-
cial integration of pyrolysis with anaerobic digestion.
Some researchers have studied the integration of the pyrolysis
and anaerobic digestion processes [17–19]. Most of them consid-
ered the digestate as the potential feedstock for the pyrolysis pro-
cess and found the integration of the processes to be technically
feasible [18–20]. Serena et al. [21] studied the life cycle assessment
of the pyrolysis process coupled with anaerobic digestion and con-
cluded that a significant reduction of greenhouse gasses could be
achieved through process integration. In their review on linking
pyrolysis with anaerobic digestion, Fabbri et al. [22] stated that
the upgrading of pyrolysis products via anaerobic digestion could
1075
A capacity (t/y)
n scaling factor (–)
P production (t/y)
I consumption (t/y)
Dh lower heating value (MJ/kg)
QR heat required (MWh)
QG heat generated (MWh)
ER power required (MWh)
t tonne
y year
i interest rate (%)
N project life (years)
k kinetic parameter (1/s)
T temperature (K)
E activation energy (J/mol)
R gas constant (J/mol/K)
Subscript
o base scale
daf dry ash-free
increase energy recovery. Furthermore, a non-biodegradable frac-
tion of MSW can be used to increase the biomethane yield. How-
ever, it is noted that the previous publications mainly focused on
experiment-based studies. Additionally, the biochar added to the
digestion process was prepared via the pyrolysis of various feed-
stocks, such as fruit wood [12], paper sludge [14], and digestate
[17–19]. Moreover, the utilisation pathway of other pyrolysis prod-
ucts, such as bio-oil and syngas, was not addressed thoroughly in
the abovementioned studies, and little attention was given to the
heat demand of the whole process of integrated pyrolysis and
anaerobic digestion.
In our previous work [23], we performed modelling and simula-
tion of an integrated anaerobic digestion and pyrolysis process and
showed that the net positive energy balance and overall efficiency
of the coupled process was larger than that of the stand-alone
approach. We also found that there is a need to evaluate alterna-
tive options to utilise the pyrolysis products in a more efficient
way. We selected the more conventional route to enhance bio-
methane production via catalytic methanation as a promising first
step to valorise green waste biomass unsuitable for anaerobic
digestion via pyrolysis since the infrastructure for the utilisation
of the biomethane is available. In this study, a novel approach
has been selected to increase the final amount of biomethane via
the integration of these processes through process modelling and
simulation. The bio-oil produced by the pyrolysis process can be
converted into syngas via a steam cracking and reforming process
[24]. The modelling and simulation study for the production of bio-
methane via pyrolysis has previously been studied only as a stand-
alone process [9] and never as part of an integration with anaerobic
digestion. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first
study to model the integration of pyrolysis and anaerobic digestion
to estimate the possible amount of biomethane that can be
achieved in the final mix.
2. Methods and modelling
The aim of this work is to present the overall system analysis of
a biorefinery that forms biomethane as the main product via the
1076 C.A. Salman et al. / Applied Energy 204 (2017) 1074–1083
coupling of both pyrolysis and anaerobic digestion. Fig. 1 shows
the plant configuration of the base stand-alone process and the
proposed process selected for this work. The source-separated
green waste was subjected to the pyrolysis process, and the bio-
char obtained was combusted to satisfy the heat demand of the
process. A small amount of biochar (5% of the organic loading rate
in anaerobic digestion) was also added to the digester. Although, as
mentioned earlier, the addition of biochar can result in a significant
increase in biomethane, a conservative assumption of a 5% increase
in biomethane was made for this study. The condensable vapours
separated from biochar were cracked and reformed into syngas,
which was then converted into biomethane in a methanation step.
The CO2 was separated, and biomethane was then added to the
final mix.
2.1. System description
For anaerobic digestion, real plant data were collected and used.
The biogas plant, Växtkraft, is located in Västerås, Sweden, and was
established in 2005. The plant has an annual capacity of 15,000
MWh of biogas. The plant utilises source-separated organic waste
in addition to industrial waste, such as grease, and ley crop as feed-
stock in the digestion process [25]. The input data of the power and
heat required to run the anaerobic digestion plant and other
important operational data are presented in Table 1 [25,26].
Fig. 2 shows the configuration of the proposed approach of inte-
grating pyrolysis and anaerobic digestion. The pyrolysis process
configuration has been adapted from Ringer et al. [27] and Shemfe
et al. [28]. The green waste was reduced to a particle size of <2 mm
in a grinder. The power required for the grinding process was set at
67 kWh/ton of fuel [27]. The green waste was then dried to a 10%
moisture content from a 40% initial moisture content before it
underwent the pyrolysis step. The heat required for drying was
assumed to be providing by the heat recovered from the hot
vapours obtained after the pyrolysis process, as shown in Fig. 2.
The pyrolysis process was performed at 500 °C in a circulating
fluidised bed reactor, in which sand was used as the heat transfer
medium and was circulated between the pyrolysis reactor and the
combustor reactor. Pyrolysis is an energy-intensive process and
requires a considerable amount of heat to occur without any dis-
turbance. Various authors have reported that the heat of a reaction
usually varies from 1–2.2 MJ/kg [9,27,29]. In this study, a conserva-
tive estimation of the heat of the pyrolysis reaction, i.e., 2.2 MJ/kg,
has been assumed. The biochar produced from the pyrolysis pro-
Fig. 1. The plant configuration scheme for the stand-alone (a) and novel (b) processes.
Table 1
Main operational data of the anaerobic digestion plant [25,26].
Parameters Value
Total feedstock, (t/y) 23,000
Non-biodegradable green waste (t/y) 10,000
Operating time (h) 8760
Biomethane production (MWh (t/y)) 15,000 (2805)
Heat demand (MWh) 1753
Electric power required (MWh) 1485
cess was added to the digester as 5% of the daily organic loading
rate of the digester. The rest of the char was combusted to provide
the necessary heat for the pyrolysis process. The process used for
the production of biomethane from the pyrolysis vapours is
adapted from [9]. The conversion of pyrolysis vapours to bio-
methane involved reforming, a water gas shift, and methanation
reactors, followed by the removal of carbon dioxide. The vapours
were separated from the biochar and reformed at 600 °C to pro-
duce syngas. The syngas produced after reforming was compressed
to 6 bar and converted to biomethane in a methanation reactor at
6 bar and 300 °C. The methanation was an exothermic process, and
the heat released had to be removed from the process to ensure a
forward reaction. The water was then condensed, and biomethane
was upgraded via pressure swing absorption (PSA). The reforming
and methanation processes were simulated by taking the equilib-
rium conditions into consideration. In the design and simulation
of the compressor, the heat exchangers and biomethane upgrading
via the (PSA) method were not considered, as they are out of the
scope of this work. The biomethane content in the final stream
was assumed to be as pure as 98%. The main inputs and key
assumptions of the process are summarised in Table 4.
2.2. Modelling and simulation
The schematic representation of the modelling and simulation
is presented in Fig. 3. Aspen PlusÒ has been used for the modelling
and simulation of the pyrolysis process. The estimation of pyrolysis
products was modelled according to the multistep reaction kinetic
schemes given by Ranzi et al. [30]. Ranzi et al. proposed the predic-
tion of pyrolysis products on the basis of the lignocellulosic con-
tent of biomass, which has been used in this study. The reactions
that were used to model the pyrolysis process, along with their
rate expressions, are presented in Table 3. The Arrhenius equation
was used to measure the rate of reactions.
 C.A. Salman et al. / Applied Energy 204 (2017) 1074–1083 1077

Fig. 2. Process configuration of the proposed coupling of pyrolysis with anaerobic digestion.

chemical analyses of the green waste that was used for the mod-
elling are summarised in Table 2.
The thermodynamic performance of the whole integrated pro-
cess was estimated from the overall energy efficiency, which was
calculated using the following equation [33]:

ðm  DhÞmethane þ Q G
gLHV ¼ ð2Þ
ðm  DhÞGW;daf þ ðm  DhÞMSW;daf þ Q R þ ER

where Dh denotes the lower heating values for specific components

(green waste and municipal solid waste); m is the mass flow rate of
respective components, with the subscript daf denoting the dry ash-
free feed; ER and Q R are the electric power and heat required to run
the process, respectively; and QG is the excess heat generated by the
system.

2.3. Economic analysis

Economic analysis of the novel biorefinery concept was con-

ducted to determine the feasibility of the process. The mass and
heat balance results obtained from the Aspen Plus simulation, lit-
erature data and assumptions were used to conduct the economic
analysis. The basic assumptions and other data used are sum-
marised in Table 5. The prices of biomass, power, heat, and bio-
methane were considered with respect to the Swedish market.
The capital costs of equipment were based on data from the liter-
ature [35,36], and the amounts were scaled to those of the year
Fig. 3. A schematic representation of the modelling and simulation of the proposed 2016 according to the correlations from [37].
process.
n
A
C ¼ Co ð3Þ
Ao
E
Rate of reaction ¼ k  exp RT ð1Þ
where C is the cost of equipment with capacity A, Co is the capacity
where k is the kinetic constant, E is the activation energy in J/mol, T of the base equipment with equipment capacity Ao, and n is the
is the temperature at which reaction occurs, and R is the universal scaling factor, with a range from 0.6 to 0.8. To make the cost esti-
gas constant, 8.314 J/mol/K. The organic composition and other mates consistent with the currency and current year, the Chemical
1078 C.A. Salman et al. / Applied Energy 204 (2017) 1074–1083

Table 2
The feedstock properties of the green waste used for the pyrolysis process.

Green waste [31,32]

Proximate analysis, % (dry) Ultimate analysis, % (dry) Organic composition, %
Ash 8.18 Carbon 47.06 Cellulose 40.6
Volatile matter 76.11 Hydrogen 6.85 Hemicellulose 16.89
Fixed carbon 15.71 Oxygen 37.08 Lignin 17.63
Moisture 40
LHV MJ/kg (dry basis) 18

All values are in weight percent.

Table 3 Table 5
Reaction kinetics for the pyrolysis process [30]. Basic assumptions and input data used for the economic analysis.

Pyrolysis reactions Rate equations Parameters Value Ref.

Cellulose ? active cellulose 4  103  exp
216;000:6
RT Plant life 20 years [37]
Cellulose ? 6char + 5H2O 149;000 Plant discount rate, CRF 10% [37]
4  107  exp RT
Working capital investment 15% of FCI [37]
Active cellulose ? LVG 8
5  10  exp
139;600
RT
Plant contingency 15% of WCI [37]
Active cellulose ? vapours + char 1:8  T  exp
48;100
RT Operating and maintenance 4% of FCI [37]
Hemicellulose ? hemicellulose1 + hemicellulose2 3:3  109  exp
149;200
RT costs
Hemicellulose1 ? vapours + char 9 154;000 Operating hours 8760 [37]
1  10  exp RT
Start-up period 3 years [37]
Hemicellulose1 ? vapours + char 0:05  T  exp
38;500
RT
Depreciation method Double declining balance [37]
Hemicellulose1 ? xylose 0:9  T  exp
52;900
RT
depreciation method
Hemicellulose2 ? vapours + char 9
3:3  10  exp
158;800
RT Biomass purchasing cost, 20 [39]
a
Lignin ? lignin-c + lignin-h + lignin-o Euro/MWh
Lignin-c ? lignin-cc + vapours + char 1:3  1015  exp
233;400
RT
Biomethane price, Euro/kg 1.97 [40]
Lignin-cc ? vapours + char 6 151;600 Electricity price, Euro/MWh 28.59 [41]
1:6  10  exp RT
District heat price, Euro/MWh 94 [42]
Lignin-h ? lignin-OH + vapours 6:7  1012  exp
180;500
RT

Lignin-o ? lignin-OH + vapours 3:3  108  exp

122;700
RT

Lignin-OH ? lignin + vapours + char 5  107  exp

144;400
RT
Engineering Plant Cost Index (CPECI) was applied using the follow-
Lignin ? vapours + char 8
4  10  exp
144;400
RT
ing equation [35]:
Lignin ? Fe2macr 2:4  T  exp
57;700
RT

CEPCIY
Vapours in the above table represent gases such as CO, CO2, CH4, H2 and H2O, while Cost€;Year X ¼ Cost €;Year Y  ð4Þ
bio-oil fractions are represented by CH2O, HCOOH, CH3OH, C2H2O2, C2H4O, C2H4O2, CEPCIX
C2H5OH, C3H6O, C5H10O5, C6H6O, C6H6O3, C9H10O2, and C11H12O4.
a For this study, the CEPCI for the year 2016 was considered. Indi-
Lignin is assumed to equally distributed as lignin-c, lignin-h, and lignin-o.
rect costs were added for each piece of equipment, along with con-
tingencies and installation costs. The total capital investment (TCI)
of a process was calculated as the sum of the fixed capital invest-
ment (FCI) and working capital investment (WCI). The WCI was
Table 4 assumed to be 15% of the FCI in this study.
Key modelling inputs and assumptions used in modelling done using Aspen Plus.
TCI ¼ FCI þ WCI ð5Þ
Process Description
Grindinga Crusher – grinding of green waste was modelled to yield a
The net annual profit (NAP), the rate of return (ROR) and net
final particle size < 2 mm. present value (NPV) were used to evaluate the economic perfor-
Drying Rstoic – a stoichiometric reactor that adjusts the moisture mance. In this study, the NAP (million Euros per year) was esti-
removal was used to mirror the drying process. The mated using the following equation:
calculator block of Aspen Plus was connected to the dryer to
determine the heat required for drying. NAP ¼ Pbiomethane  C biomethane  Ibiomass  C biomass  AIC  O&M ð6Þ
Pyrolysis Ryield – the rate-based reaction kinetics were modelled at
500 °C externally in Python programming language and where Cx represents the annual cost in €/MWh, and Px represents
obtained product yields were transferred to Aspen Plus the production of respective species in MWh per year. The input
through the calculator block.
values used in the study are given in Table 5. O&M denotes the
Combustor RStoic – a stoichiometric reactor for combustion reactions.
Cyclone Cyclone – the separation of sand and char from vapours was
operating and maintenance costs and is assumed to be 4% of the
modelled using a cyclone separator with a separation total capital cost. AIC is the annualised investment cost and is cal-
efficiency of 99% and pressure loss of 1%. culated by solving the following equation:
Reformerb RGibbs – an equilibrium reactor at 500 °C for the reforming of
hot vapours from the pyrolysis process. AIC ¼ TCI  CRF ð7Þ
Compressorc Compressor – isentropic efficiency of 80% and mechanical
efficiency of 95%. CRF is the capital recovery factor, which is calculated by solving the
Methanationd RGibbs – an equilibrium reactor at 300 °C and 6 bar for the following equation:
methanation of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and
N
hydrogen. ið1 þ iÞ
CRF ¼ N
ð8Þ
a
Based on [28]. ið1 þ iÞ  1
b
Based on [9].
c
Based on [34]. where i, which corresponds to the interest rate, is assumed to be
d
Based on [9]. 8%, and N denotes a project lifetime of 20 years. The payback per-
 C.A. Salman et al. / Applied Energy 204 (2017) 1074–1083
iod (PBP) is usually defined as the time required to recover the ini-
tial investments; the %age rate of return (ROR), net present value
(NPV) in million Euros and PBP in years were calculated by solving
the following equations:
FCIDepreciable
PBP ¼ ð9Þ
NAP
NAP
ROR ¼ % ð10Þ
TCI
X
N¼final
Rt
NPV ¼ ð11Þ
N
N¼0 ð1 þ iÞ
where Rt is the net cash flow, i is the interest rate, and N is the time
period in years of the cash flow. The economic indicator calculations
usually show the costs and profits at a system level, and do not indi-
cate the distribution of these costs among involved stakeholders. To
include these costs and the comparison of economic feasibility with
other processes, the levelised cost of energy (LCOE) is an effective
measure. It is defined as the summary of the overall economic fea-
sibility of various technologies [38]. The LCOE (Euro/MWh) was cal-
culated using the following equation [38]:
P
ðAIC þ O&M þ C biomass Þ
LCOE ¼ ð12Þ
Biomethaneoutput  op:hours
3. Results
3.1. Model validation
The model developed in Aspen PlusÒ was validated using the
experimental data for pine wood pyrolysis in a fluidised bed reac-
tor published by Wang et al. [43,44]. Fig. 4 displays the variation in
the pyrolysis product yield of pine wood for the model and exper-
imental values. The developed pyrolysis model shows an error of
up to approximately 5% for bio-oil compared to the experimental
values. A bio-oil content of 58% wt. was obtained using the model,
compared to the experimental value of 61%. The difference
between the experimental and model values for syngas and bio-
char was considerably lower. Hence, the developed pyrolysis
model was used further to study the integration of the pyrolysis
and anaerobic digestion processes.
3.2. Base-case results
To determine and compare the plant efficiency, a base case was
established in which the green waste underwent pyrolysis, and the
bio-oil and syngas were upgraded to biomethane. For this, the
Fig. 4. Validation of the pyrolysis model results at 500 °C using experimental data
from [44].
1079
inputs used for pyrolysis (10,000 t/y) and anaerobic digestion
(23,000 t/y) were taken from the reference biogas plant (Table 1).
The simulations were performed, and the mass balance values
of the streams are summarised in Table 6. The amount of water
in the biomass after drying was 10% and increased to 17.8% after
pyrolysis owing to the generation of water during the pyrolysis
reactions. The heat required to run the pyrolysis process was calcu-
lated to be 0.57 MW (2.2 MJ/kg), and the heat required to run the
drying process was 0.28 MW. In the simulation, the necessary heat
was designed to be provided by the combustion of the biochar. The
methanation of carbon monoxide and hydrogen resulted in the
production of 2.81 MW of biomethane from the total biomass
input of approximately 3.65 MW. The methanation was an
exothermic reaction, and the extra heat that could be recovered
from the process amounted to 0.6 MW, as shown in Table 7. This
shows that the integration of two processes can not only satisfy
the required heat demand but also produce extra heat, which could
be utilised in the anaerobic digestion process.
The heat balance of both processes and the resulting individual
and overall efficiencies are shown in Table 7. The results show the
good potential of producing biomethane using the pyrolysis pro-
cess even after considering the heat demand of the whole produc-
tion process. The simulation estimated that the overall heat
requirement for the process was approximately 25% of the green
waste input. The overall amount of biomethane produced by the
pyrolysis process alone was approximately 24,710 MWh. As a
result, the coupling of both processes increased the amount of bio-
methane produced 1.2 times compared with the stand-alone
anaerobic digestion process. The overall efficiency of the novel pro-
cess, i.e., 67%, was significantly higher than that of the independent
anaerobic digestion process (52%). The results further indicated
that the efficiency of the stand-alone pyrolysis process (75%) was
larger than that of the overall integrated novel approach. This is
mainly due to the lower efficiency of the stand-alone anaerobic
digestion process. The Sankey diagram of energy flows for the inte-
grated process is displayed in Fig. 5.
3.3. Economic assessments
The annual revenue for the new biorefinery system was com-
pared with that of the stand-alone systems, and the results are
depicted in Fig. 6. The novel system showed almost 20% more
annual revenues when green waste was converted to biogas via
the integrated pyrolysis and anaerobic process compared to when
it was combusted to generate heat and power. This difference was
mainly due to the relatively high price of biogas and the low prices
of power and heat [40–42].
The capital investment for the new process was calculated to
make it consistent with previous estimates [35,36]. The breakdown
of the TCI for various processes in a plant is displayed in Fig. 7. The
total capital investment resulted from the summation of the total
direct cost, indirect cost, plant contingency, working capital, and
retrofitting cost of the integrated pyrolysis and anaerobic digestion
process. The pyrolysis process and methanation process are the
most expensive, contributing approximately 27% and 29% of the
total capital investments, respectively, followed by the utilities,
feed preparation, and the biomethane upgradation section.
An economic analysis has also been conducted for the proposed
integrated process, and the assumptions of this analysis are stated
in Table 7. The main findings from the economic calculations are
summarised in Table 8. The proposed novel biorefinery system
showed a promising performance in terms of economic feasibility.
The payback period of the new integrated system is 6.1 years, with
a 16.5% rate of return. The calculations in Table 7 are for the base-
case pyrolysis system with 10,000 t/y of green waste as the feed.
The cost of energy and the NAP as a function of the input green
1080 C.A. Salman et al. / Applied Energy 204 (2017) 1074–1083

Table 6
Simulation results of the integrated pyrolysis and anaerobic digestion process. (The numbers of streams are from Fig. 2).

Stream no 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
CH4, wt.% 2.9 3.5 0 0 18.3 30.5 33.1 3.4 97.9
CO, wt.% 3.7 4.4 0 0 39.4 0 0 0 0
H2, wt.% 0.8 1 0 0 3.3 0 0 0 0
CO2, wt.% 5.1 6.2 0 0 33 61.4 66.7 6.8 2.1
Bio-oil, wt.%a 49.9 60.7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Biochar, wt.%a 17.7 – 100 100 0 0 0 0 0
H2O, wt.% 17.8 21.6 0 0 6 8.1 0.2 89.6 0
Total flow, kg/h 760 624.5 135.5 6.8 624.5 624.5 568.8 55.7 184.6
Temperature, °C 500 500 500 500 600 300 100 25 25
Pressure, bar 1 1 1 1 1 6 1 1 1
LHV, MW 3.65 3.29 0.75 0.04 3.23 2.9 2.87 0.03 2.82
a
The heating values of bio-oil and biochar have been taken from [6].

Table 7
The heat balance of the proposed pyrolysis and anaerobic digestion integration
approach compared with that of the stand-alone processes.

Pyrolysis process
Input
Green waste, MWh (t/y) 32,013 (10,000)
Heat for pyrolysis, MWh 4015
Heat for drying, MWh 2481
Power required to run the process, MWh 1600
Output
Biomethane, MWh 24,710
Extra heat recovereda, MWh 5431
Anaerobic digestion process
Input
MSW, MWh (t/y) 25,555 (23,000)
Heat required, MWh 1753
Power required, MWh 1485
Fig. 6. A comparison of annual revenues of the proposed integrated process and
Output
that of the stand-alone processes.
Biomethane, MWh 15,750
Stand-alone anaerobic digestion efficiency, %b 52
Stand-alone pyrolysis process efficiency, % 75
A sensitivity analysis was also conducted. Fig. 9 shows the sen-
Overall efficiency of integrated process, % 67
sitivity of some important parameters with respect to the net
a
This is the heat that was recovered from the exothermic methanation process at annual profit (NAP). The ±50% change in the price of biogas showed
300°C.
b
a large variation in NAP, i.e., up to ±125% Million Euros/year.
For the stand-alone efficiency of the anaerobic digestion plant, the actual bio-
methane output of a biogas plant of 15,000 MWh was taken from Table 1.
Changes in the total plant capacity also yielded a large variation
in profits. However, the initial capital investments might increase
significantly as the plant capacity increases. The increase of the
waste are displayed in Fig. 8. The cost of energy was 79 Euro/MWh capital recovery factor to 0.2 instead of to 0.1 affected the net
for the base case, but the cost of energy per MWh decreased annual profit negatively, with approximately 10% less profit. A
abruptly as the plant capacity increased, and it then stabilised after decrease in operating hours also resulted in significantly less
reaching a plant capacity of 30,000 t/y. At the same time, the net annual profits than did the case in which the plant operated at full
annual profits directly increased as the plant capacity increased. capacity (8760 h).

Fig. 5. The energy flow of the proposed biorefinery (all the values are in MWh).
 C.A. Salman et al. / Applied Energy 204 (2017) 1074–1083 1081

4. Discussion

The proposed process demonstrates the ability to increase bio-

methane production via the integration of two technologies. The
process simulation studies of the mass and energy balance take
into account significant assumptions of the estimation of products,
which can produce some uncertainties. In this work, the bio-
methane produced from the stand-alone pyrolysis process had an
efficiency of 75%, which is similar to the efficiency estimated by
Görling et al. [9], i.e., 74%. Furthermore, the overall biogas produc-
tion via the integrated pyrolysis process had a higher total effi-
ciency than do other methods [9]. In our previous work [23], we
simulated the integration of pyrolysis with anaerobic digestion
for heat and power production instead of for biomethane produc-
tion. The overall energy efficiency of the heat and power produc-
Fig. 7. A breakdown of total capital investment (TCI) for the new plant according to tion was 59% [23], whereas in this case, a higher efficiency of
the respective areas. 67% was achieved, with a substantial increase in biomethane in
the final mix. The plant also produced 0.6 MW of excess heat.
Table 8
The excess heat can be used to satisfy the heat demand of the
Economic performance of the integrated process. anaerobic digestion process or sold in the form of district heat.
The coupling of different technologies also seems feasible if the
Economic indicators Value Units
logistics are taken into consideration. The collection, source sepa-
Annualised capital investment 1.95 Million Euros/y ration and transport of waste for various technologies is an
Net annual revenue 3.2 Million Euros/y
energy-intensive process, and the standalone processes become
Net annual profit 1.25 Million Euros/y
Payback period 6.1 Years less efficient when these factors are also taken into consideration.
Rate of return 16.5 % As mentioned earlier, total global waste generation will amount to
Net present value 13 Million Euros 2.2 billion tonnes by 2025. There will be a need for smarter tech-
LCOE 79 Euro/MWh
nologies that can treat this waste, and the integration of different
technologies is an effective way to achieve this.
There has been continuous work investigating the efficient util-
isation of biomass resources for residual energy generation. The
integration of various technologies for the conversion of various
biomass fractions to bioenergy seems to be a feasible future option.
The integration option studied here has the main aim of integrating
pyrolysis with anaerobic digestion. The overall results indicated
that the integration of these two technologies offers the possibility
of the efficient utilisation of waste and, ultimately, an increase in
the total amount of biomethane. The proposed process offers the
potential of an almost 1.2-fold increase in biomethane production.
However, the results are obviously the direct consequences of the
input data that were selected and assumed as technical and eco-
nomic parameters. The equilibrium conditions were selected for
the reforming and methanation steps. The actual production of bio-
methane may vary for different process conditions [9]. Another
concern is related to the assumptions made for the modelling
and simulation. The equilibrium conditions usually yield the max-
imum achievable product. The actual production can be lower than
Fig. 8. The cost of energy, Euro/MWh, and net annual profit, MEuro/y, as a function the reported values. This study has been conducted by considering
of the input capacity of the pyrolysis process. the Swedish market as the basis for the prices of biomethane and
other entities, such as power and heat, which vary with location
and could possibly yield alternative results. However, an attempt
to address this problem has been made by performing the sensitiv-
ity analysis of these important parameters.
As described earlier, source-separated green waste constitutes
approximately 30% of the total feedstock in anaerobic digestion,
and the most common way to utilise this is for the production of
power and/or heat [25]. The levelised cost for a combination heat
and power plant in Europe was estimated by the IEA to be above
100 Euro/MWh [38]. The estimate of the LCOE in this study for
the integrated pyrolysis-anaerobic digestion system was 79 Euro/
MWh, which is almost 20% lower than that of green waste
combustion.
In this work, the main focus was to increase the amount of bio-
methane in the final mix by efficiently utilising waste, and the
Fig. 9. The sensitivity analysis of the effect of different parameters on net annual modelling of biomethane production involved the consideration
profit. of conventional processes such as reforming and catalytic
1082 C.A. Salman et al. / Applied Energy 204 (2017) 1074–1083
methanation. This lowered the level of integration, and this low
level of integration means that both plants can be treated as sepa-
rate plants, which may increase the transport costs for green waste
but may also increase the independence of the system. A more
integrated process approach can be achieved through biomethana-
tion. Biomethanation via the Sabatier reaction has been applied
and evaluated in previous studies [45,46]. However, this process
also has some constraints, such as the limited solubility of CO in
water. The presence of CO also favours the growth of acetogenic
and hydrogenic bacteria over methanogenic bacteria, which ulti-
mately affects the final products [47,48]. Another possible, more
integrated approach was studied by Hübner et al. [17], who inves-
tigated the effect on biomethane production by digesting the aque-
ous fraction of bio-oil obtained from pyrolysis. They found that the
pyrolysis conditions and the organic fractions of bio-oil have a
large impact on overall biomethane production.
The technical assessment of the integrated process was
restricted by assuming that adding biochar to the digester would
increase the biomethane content. Although the potential of adding
biochar to promote an increase in biomethane production has been
researched experimentally and reported by a number of research-
ers [11–14], there is a need for more comprehensive studies to cor-
relate the increase in biomethane production with the addition of
biochar to retrofit the anaerobic digestion process [49].
5. Conclusion
In this work, a new concept of coupling pyrolysis with anaero-
bic digestion for the efficient valorisation of various fractions of
organic waste was presented. Non-biodegradable green waste
was pyrolysed, and biochar was added to the digester to increase
biomethane production. The other products obtained from the
pyrolysis of green waste were also investigated to determine their
effects on biomethane production. The feasibility of the proposed
system was analysed by modelling and simulating the process.
The performance of the system, about economic parameters, was
also estimated.
The technical analysis showed that there is a potential for the
enhancement of biomethane production with the proposed con-
cept. Also, an excess amount of heat can be produced which means
that there is a potential for the integrated process not only to fulfil
the heat demand of the combined processes but also to cover the
heat demand for the anaerobic digestion process and/or to deliver
district heating. The economic analysis indicated a positive net
annual profit with the rate of return of 16.5% and a payback period
of about six years. Sensitivity analysis also showed that the change
in price for biomethane would have a large impact on the eco-
nomic performance of the process.
Acknowledgements
The project was a co-production study within the Future Energy
Profile platform. The Knowledge Foundation in Sweden (KKS),
Vafab Miljö AB and Eskilstuna Energi och Miljö are acknowledged
for their funding and information contributions.
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