Estimating the potential of energy generation by anaerobic digestion of slaughterhouse wastes toward sustainable waste management strategy: a case study

ABSTRACT

While producing and consuming vast amounts of energy, Iran has lagged behind its peers in the use of renewable energies, such as bioenergy. The present study was an attempt to estimate the potential of energy generation by the anaerobic digestion of organic matter produced in Iranian slaughterhouses, recruiting a waste-management and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction approach. Accordingly, the type and amount of slaughterhouse wastes (SHWs) produced in different provinces were identified, and then the potential of methane (CH₄) production at the provincial and national scales was estimated. The results showed that, theoretically, there was the potential for producing 111 million cubic meters per year (m³/yr) of CH₄ from SHWs, which, if fed into combined heat-power (CHP) plants, could ideally produce 1,004 gigawatt-hour (GWh) of electricity. This would also enhance the share of renewable resources in Iran’s total energy supply by 4%. Exploiting biogas produced by anaerobic digestion instead of traditional fossil fuels would thus reduce Iran’s annual carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions by 482,000 tonnes. Correspondingly, the economic analysis of the energy and social costs of CO₂ emissions revealed that energy generation by the anaerobic digestion of SHWs could lead to an annual cost-saving of about $102 million.

KEYWORDS:

• Energy
• sustainable
• waste management
• anaerobic digestion
• emission control

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pooria Latifi

Pouria Latifi received his B.Sc in Civil Engineering from the Islamic Azad University of Birjand, Iran, in 2014. During his M.Sc degree, under the supervision of Dr. Mohsen Karrabi, he studied on the production of biogas from slaughterhouse waste and he graduated from Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran, in the field of Environmental Engineering in 2018.

Mohsen Karrabi

Dr. Mohsen Karrabi is an Associate Professor at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran. He obtained his B.Sc (1993) and M.Sc (1997) degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Power and Water University of Technology, and Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran. Mohsen Karrabi received his Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from Grenoble Institute of Technology, France, in 2009. After completing a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Aix-Marseille, France, in 2011, he was appointed faculty member in the Department of Civil Engineering at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, where he currently leads a research group involved in Environmental Engineering.

Bahar Shahnavaz

Dr. Bahar Shahnavaz is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran, where she has been since 2011. She received a B.S. from Isfahan University, Isfahan, Iran, in 1999, and an M.Sc from Mashhad University of Medical Science. She obtained his Ph.D. in Microbial Ecology from the University of Grenoble 1, France, in 2009.