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MODICOP: Integrated Modelling System for the Management of Sewage Sludge and Other Organic Waste
2020
Innovative sludge and waste management based on composting and two-stage thermophilic anaerobic digestion.
Legal regulation concerning water and waste is becoming increasingly demanding, placing significant restrictions on the agricultural valorisation of sewage sludge. Following the Order of 6 August 2018, jointly drawn up by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Development and the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning, new controls and requirements have been established for the spreading of sewage sludge on agricultural land. Therefore, the implementation of a new or significantly improved sewage sludge management system is necessary, which will allow compliance with the new established requirements.
In this context, the MODICOP project emerged, which consists of the development of an innovative integrated sludge and waste management system, based on two fundamental technologies: composting and dual-phase thermophilic anaerobic digestion. With this new system, stabilised sewage sludge, plant biomass, water treatment sludge, unstabilised municipal sludge, industrial organic waste, and separately collected organic municipal solid waste can be treated in a complementary manner to the existing co-substrate treatment at the wastewater treatment plant. Furthermore, the BIOMAX-G composting model will be used, which represents a competitive advantage over other technologies as it has never been used before for the combined treatment of sewage sludge and organic solid waste from the agri-food industry.
With the implementation of two-phase digestation (thermophilic+mesophilic), energy production is expected to increase by 20% compared to conventional mesophilic digestation, allowing the upgrading of surplus biogas so that it can be revalued as fuel for vehicles or used in the EDAR nurseries. Furthermore, the digestate, after dewatering in centrifuges, can be sent to thermal treatment or composting plants.
