Anaerobic Digestion And Fermentation

We have years of experience in various types of anaerobic fermentation and anaerobic digestion for the production of chemicals and fuels. The team has knowledge and experience in isolation and handling of Clostridial strains and clostridial fermentations for the production of hydrogen, organic acids and solvents. Celignis's CIO Lalitha Gottumukkala has published several articles in the area of Clostridial fermentation, especially for biobutanol. Celignis’s AD expert Kwame has optimised the process for sequential production of bioethanol and biogas from paper sludge as part of his Process Engineering Research Masters in Stellenbosch University, South Africa and has published articles on the same.

Celignis is using this expertise in the development of an advanced anaerobic digestion process design (STEAME) that allows high volumetric productivity and yields. This is being done as part of a nationally-funded project (Irish Research Council). In this process, the thermophilic nature of archaea is taken advantage of together with the ability of Clostridia to digest complex feedstocks. In STEAME Celignis is using expertise in biomass pretreatment together with microbial and enzyme expertise to enhance the anaerobic digestion of late cut grass, wheat straw and other complex-recalcitrant agricultural residues.

Celignis also provides services for biomethane potential (BMP) determination; anaerobic toxicity assays; specific hydrolytic, acidogenic and methanogenic potential using its 90 1L anaerobic digestion reactors. Celignis has also the reactor set-up for continuous anaerobic digestion and sequential continuous anaerobic digestion that allows two stage and multi-stage digestion. Additionally, the Celignis team also has strong expertise in the valorisation and treatment of food industry effluent streams and is providing consultancy for three years for the operation of high-rate digesters that process 60 m3/h of dairy industry waste streams. This expertise is of particular value in EU projects where zero-pollution is the process target.

Our AD experience is particularly relevant to the following topics of the 2022 CBE-JU Work Programme: JU-CBE-2022-IA-04 (Co-processing of mixed bio-based waste streams), JU-CBE-2022-IA-02 (Cooperative business models for sustainable mobilisation And valorisation of agricultural residues, by-products, and waste in rural areas), JU-CBE-2022-IAFlag-01 (Maximum valorisation of sustainably sourced bio-based feedstock in multi-product, zero-waste, zero-pollution biorefinery), JU-CBE-2022-R-04 (Proteins from alternative and unconventional sources), and JU-CBE-2022-IAFlag-02 (Alternative sources for high added value food and/or feed ingredients).