Biostimulants to increase biogas production?

  • Peter

    Member
    29 May 2025 at 11:03 am

    There are a few categories of digester additives that are on the market to increase biogas production.

    Trace-metal nutrients can increase biogas production, but only when the digester is deficient nutrients because of the feedstock it is receiving.

    Enzymes can help to breakdown recalcitrant feedstocks like cellulose and fat, because enzyme addition is expensive, we see very few digester operators that see an economic case to use them in North America.

    Microbial cultures are marketed to increase biogas production by breaking down more recalcitrant feedstocks, however we have not seen wide adoption of this or clear demonstration that they can be cost effective for a full scale biogas plant.

  • Joerg

    Member
    3 June 2025 at 10:07 pm

    I echo Peter’s perspectives.

    Bioaugmentation is still an emerging field and has been tried and implemented on a few full-scale AD facilities. What is more common -and often a must- is the addition of micro- and macro nutrients especially where mono-feedstocks such a corn silage is fed to the digesters.

    Some facilities dose very specific micronutrients such a cobalt to compensate for nutrient deficiencies in the processed feedstocks.

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