Renewable Energy 66 (2014) 461e467

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Renewable Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene

Electrical energy production from the integrated aerobic-anaerobic

treatment of organic waste by ORC
Francesco Di Maria*, Caterina Micale, Alessio Sordi
Dipartimento di Ingengeria, Universit di Perugia, Via G Duranti 67, 06125 Perugia, Italy

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 27 June 2013
Accepted 30 December 2013
Available online

The energetic performance of an ORC system fueled by the heat generated from the integrated aerobic/
anaerobic treatment of organic waste was analyzed. The temperature and heat content of the exhaust air
arising from the aerobic treatment were increased by the combustion of the biogas produced by the
anaerobic digestion of a fraction of the same waste. On the basis of the amount of excess air exploited in
the process, for each tonne of organic waste treated, it was possible to produce from 30 to 90 kg of
exhaust air per day with a mean temperature ranging from 330 to 340 K. By processing from 0.5% to 16%
of the whole organic waste in an anaerobic digestion section instead of the aerobic one, it was possible to
increase the exhaust air temperature from 340 to 510 K, leading to an increase in the ORC size from about
0.05 to about 1 W/tonne/year. The best energetic utilization of the biogas was achieved for ORC
compression ratios from 1.5 to 2 and for maximum air temperatures from 335 to 340 K. In these conditions, by using a micro-ORC system (i.e. <15 kW), it was possible to convert about 20% of the energy
content of the biogas into electrical energy.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Aerobic treatment
Anaerobic digestion
Electrical energy
Organic Rankine cycle
Organic waste
Figure of merit

1. Introduction
Anaerobic and aerobic biological treatments are widely exploited in processing organic waste (OW) both for energy production
and for biological reactivity reduction before nal recovery and/or
disposal [1e7]. In particular anaerobic digestion (AD) can lead to
the production from about 80 Nm3 up to 210 Nm3 of biogas per
tonne of processed OW. The methane concentration usually ranges
from 50 to 70% v/v [8e14], whereas the other main component is
CO2. The corresponding lower heating value (LHV) varies from
18,000 kJ/Nm3 to 24,000 kJ/Nm3 and biogas can be exploited as fuel
in internal combustion engines for renewable energy production.
The viability of AD is greatly inuenced by plant size and by the
variation in the rate and composition of OW during the year
[11,12,15]. Aerobic treatments are used to reduce both OW and AD
digestate residual biological reactivity before disposal or for the
production of organic fertilizer, depending on OW quality [16]. As
extensively demonstrated [17e19], aerobic treatment can lead to
long-term emission reduction in landlls, up to 90%. If OW quality
is compatible with the characteristics of organic fertilizer [20e22],
aerobic bioconversion is generally used to convert the OW to substances exploitable for agricultural use. During the aerobic process,

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: francesco.dimaria@unipg.it (F. Di Maria).
0960-1481/$ e see front matter 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2013.12.045

bacteria oxidize the organic matter [23], generating about 17,000e

18,000 kJ/kg OM [24] of heat. Due to the high initial concentration
of OM, heat release is particularly high in the rst 2e4 weeks,
causing an increase in the OW mass and consequently in process air
temperatures. Maximum temperatures achieved in full-scale facilities range from 55
C to 75
C, depending mainly on thermal
loss, OW moisture content OM content and process air rate [25,26].
In a previous study, Di Maria et al. [26] evaluated the possibility of
recovering this heat for civil use by heat pumps. Results showed
that the process exhaust air temperature ranged from about 55
C
to 70
C and the amount of heat ejected daily ranged from about
120 to about 350 kWh/tonne depending mainly on the amount of
OW treated and the process air rate.
Another possible solution for recovering this amount of low
temperature heat is by using the organic Rankine cycle (ORC) system. The ORC uses the same components as a conventional steam
power plant, but uses an organic uid to extract low-grade thermal
energy to generate electricity. ORC is commonly used in practical
industrial applications such as biomass power [27,28] solar power
[29] also aimed at water production [30], ocean thermal energy
conversion, geothermal power [31,32], and waste heat recovery
power [33]. Bidini et al. [34] analyzed the exploitation of ORC in an
integrated gas turbine-geothermal power plant for recovering lowgrade heat ejected from gas turbine exhaust after geothermal uid
heating. Gewald et al. [35] showed that ORC can improve the efciency of landll gas-red power plants by about 12%. Desideri and

462

F. Di Maria et al. / Renewable Energy 66 (2014) 461e467

Di Maria [36] reported that the exploitation of ORC for recovering

exhaust heat from a humid air turbine system can lead to an overall
cycle efciency increase from 1.6 to 2.2%. Wang et al. [37] analyzed
the effect of different working uids on ORC efciency for engine
waste heat recovery. Similarly Hung et al. [38] investigated the
effect of different organic working uids on ORC efciency using
heat generated by solar pond and ocean thermal energy. ORC is a
promising solution for decentralized, small- (i.e. <100 kW) and
micro- (i.e. <15 kW) scale combined heat and power generation
[39e41] and for this reason it is particularly used in biomass-red
plants. Even if its efciency is low, between 6% and 17%, ORC has
low maintenance and personnel costs [41]. Dong et al. [42] reported
that costs are comparable with gasication in the same small- and
micro-scale range. Furthermore, among the small number of
commercially viable biomass gasication systems, only a few have
been shown to be economical [39]. On the contrary, several smallscale ORC systems are operating and their viability has been fully
proven [39e41]. Anyway there is a lack of investigation about the
possibility of exploiting ORC for electrical energy production from
the heat produced during the bioconversion of OW. Considering the
large amount OW produced yearly in the UE27, about
100,000,000 tonnes [42] the efciency of an ORC using the heat
generated by integrated aerobic/anaerobic bioconversion of OW
was theoretically investigated. System performances were also
investigated using specic gures of merit.

closed by a specially designed door to avoid air leakage. Electric

fans supply the air through perforated oor to pass equally through
the OW heap. Exhaust air, with an increased temperature, is then
collected from the biocell roof before being discharged. The main
process parameters such as temperature (T), humidity (H) and air
rate are usually monitored and controlled inside the biocells. Once
a large fraction of the initial rapidly biodegradable OM content has
been oxidized, causing a drop in heat generation and OW temperature, the further aerobic treatment is usually carried out by
arranging the material in an open heap. The emptied biocell can
then be loaded with fresh OW for a new cycle. In any case the
largest amount of heat is generated around the 5th to the 20th day
of treatment and can contribute signicantly to the heat for feeding
the ORC. OW is composed of several biodegradable substrates such
as fruit waste, meat waste, paper and yard waste, even if traces of
impurities may also be present. From the results of a study performed for an Italian situation [12], the amount of impurities, like
plastics and metals in OW coming from high-quality source
segregation was <6% w/w. The other fraction >94% w/w was
biodegradable materials. The elemental composition of the OM has
been investigated by several authors [23,24] who showed that the
principal elements are C, H, O and N. According to these results, the
average composition of the OM qA is dened by (Eq. (1)).

C6 H10 O4

(1)

The stoichiometry of the aerobic process is shown in Eq. (2),

where the OM is oxidized generating mainly carbon dioxide, water
and heat.

2. Material and methods

2.1. Aerobic treatment model
One of the most widespread technologies for the rst 2e4
weeks of OW aerobic treatment is the use of several concrete biocells (Fig. 1) operating in parallel and in batch mode. Full-scale
biocells have a mean width and height of about 5 m and a length
generally more than 15 m, depending on the amount of waste to be
processed. Once loaded, usually by a wheeled loader, the cell is

C6 H10 O4 x 6:5O2 C6 H10 O4 x1 6CO2 5H2 O

2578:6 kJ

(2)

On the basis of Eq. (2), it is possible to quantify the l coefcient

_ e and stoiEq. (3) dened as the ratio between the effective m
_ s mass air rate (kg/s) supplied during the process. To
chiometric m

Fig. 1. Scheme of the integrated aerobic-anaerobic system with organic Rankine cycle (ORC).

F. Di Maria et al. / Renewable Energy 66 (2014) 461e467

reduce the risk of anaerobic or anoxic conditions in full-scale facilities, the value adopted for l is usually >>1.

_e
m
_s
m

(3)

The reaction kinetics [43] are represented by a rst order

equation, Eq. (4), where Ct represents the mass of oxidized OM with
respect to the total (kg/kg) at time t (day). T (
C) is the process
temperature. Values of other constants in Eq. (4) are according to Di
Maria et al. [26].
0:00632,1:066T20 $t

Ct 1  e

(4)

Thermal losses occurring during the aerobic process involve

convection, internal thermal conduction, and mass transfer phenomena and are represented by the following:
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)

Heat transfer by biocell walls;

Heat exchange by the process air;
Heat absorbed by water evaporation;
Heat exchanged by spread water (if any);
Heat absorbed by the OW mass.

The amount of heat generated during the aerobic process Eq. (2)
is equal to that exchanged with the external environment. The
system temperature can be determined on the basis of this heat
balance. The global heat exchanged during was evaluated using
well-known heat transmission relationships [26]. As previously
demonstrated [24,26] more than 80% of this heat comes from
phenomena 2) and 3). The functional unit used in the present study
was 1 tonne of OW processed in the aerobic section (Fig. 1). For
doing this, the aerobic process was simulated considering a mean
aerobic facility size able to treat 20,000 tonnes of OW per year [12].
Successively the simulated results were referred to a single tonne of
processed OW.
The exhaust air temperature was calculated by assuming a
temperature difference with the OW mass of 5 K [26].

463

global concentration of these compounds, with the exception of

CO2, was less than 1% v/v. For this reason and in accordance with
[8,14,46], biogas was assumed to be a mixture of only 60% v/v CH4
and 40% v/v CO2.
Finally the moisture content (% w/w) and VS concentration (% on
dry basis) were assumed to be, respectively, 62.7% and 81%, as reported in Ref. [12].
2.3. ORC simulation model
One of the most relevant aspects concerning the ORC power
system is the selection of the working uid. Thermodynamic,
economic and environmental properties of working uids can be
signicantly different. Several studies have been proposed
[27,32,37] giving selection criteria mainly based on rst and second
law analysis. Due to the complex aspects involving this choice, in
the present study the results proposed by Wang et al. [47] were
adopted. Wang et al. [47] proposed a screening model based on a
multi-objective optimization including temperature differences,
heat exchange efciency and heat exchange surfaces. Results point
out that the optimal working uid for the range of temperatures
used in the present study is R123 (Table 2). Fig. 2 shows a possible
temperature-entropy (Tes) diagram of the ORC (Fig. 1) once
condenser temperature and evaporation pressure have been
imposed. The mathematical model used for ORC simulation is given
by Eqs. (5)e(8). In all these equations h (kj/kg) is the specic
enthalpy of R123, subscripts s represent the isoentropic values,
whereas numbers from 1 to 5 represent the points of the cycle.
The power absorbed by the pump (Wp) was evaluated with Eq.
(5), assuming a given efciency (hp), whereas the heat supplied to
the working uid, including pre-heating and evaporation (Qin), was
_ is the mass rate (kg/s)
calculated using Eq. (6). In both equations m
of the R123.

_ 2  h1
Wp mh

_ 2s  h1
mh

hp

kW

(5)

_ 4  h2 kW
Qin mh
2.2. Biogas from AD
The amount of biomethane producible by a full-scale AD facility
is inuenced by several aspects involving both AD technology, main
process parameters and OW composition. It is usually with respect
to the volatile solids (VS) content of the biodegradable substrate
treated and expressed as % by weight on dry basis. VS are all the
compounds that can be oxidized after combustion at 550
C for
24 h, including the OM. According to Themelis and Kim [24], the
OM concentration was assumed to be 80% of VS, whereas the biomethane production was assumed to be the average among the
values reported in Table 1. The biogas generated during AD also
contains other components such as CO2, H2, N2, NH3 and H2S. The
Table 1
Specic biomethane production (Nm3/tonneVS) and methane content (% v/v) for
organic waste (OW).
Nm3/tonneVS

CH4 (% v/v)

Reference

400
370
366
281
200
305.4

56.0
e
e
63.4
60.0
60.0

[8],a
[44],b
[45],b
[14],b
[46],c
Assumed in this study

Bold value represnt specic bio-methane production assumed in this study

a
Full scale.
b
Lab scale.
c
Pilot scale.

(6)

During the expansion, from point 4 to point 5 (Fig. 2), the power
_ and expander efciency (hex),
generated (Wex) depends both on m
on evaporator pressure and condenser pressure Eq. (7).

_ 4  h5 mh
_ 4  h5s hex kW
Wex mh

(7)

The heat ejected at the condenser (Qc) is represented in Eq. (8).

_ 5  h1 kW
Qc mh

(8)

Aspects other than hp and hex that can affect system performances can be pressure drops and thermal loss occurring in ORC
pipes and heat exchangers. An accurate evaluation of these
Table 2
Main features of the organic Rankine cycle (ORC) and working uid (R123).
Parameter

Value

Unit

80
55
90
10
298
293
8

%
%
%
K
K
K
K

152.93
300.97
3.662

g/mol
K
MPa

ORC

hp
hex
heg
DTpp
Tc
Tamb
DT9,2, min
R123
Molecular mass
Boiling point
Critical pressure

464

F. Di Maria et al. / Renewable Energy 66 (2014) 461e467

p2
p1

(12)

Four different l values (5, 7, 9, 11) were assumed for evaluating

_ e and exhaust temthe effect on the aerobic treatment air rate m
perature T7 (Fig. 1). For each l, ORC performances were investigated
for different pressure ratios (b), for the pump outlet (p2) and
condenser (p1) pressures, Eq. (12), and for different T8 > T7. The
increase in T8 was achieved by the combustion of a given amount of
biogas produced by diverting a fraction of OW from aerobic treatment to the AD section.
3. Results and discussion

Fig. 2. Example of a temperature-entropy (Tes) diagram for the organic Rankine cycle
(ORC).

phenomena requires knowledge of the exact dimensions and features of all system components, which is not within the scope of
this work. Assuming that full-scale ORC are also designed for
minimizing system losses, according to the analysis performed by
Wang et al. [47], maximum pressure drops occurring in the heat
exchanger were estimated to be about 1000e2000 Pa. Thermal loss
occurring in the evaporator and condenser are mainly inuenced
by surface area and temperature, ambient temperature and the
insulation layer. Considering the quite low operating temperature
levels and drop and assuming the presence of an adequate insulating layer, these losses were very low and hence disregarded.
Hence according also with Refs. [29,38], only hp and hex were
considered. hp and hex were assumed to be 80% and 55%, respectively
[37]. The efciency of the electrical energy generator (heg) was
assumed to be 90%. The minimum temperature difference between
the heating uid and T3 (DTpp) (Fig. 2) was assumed to be 10 K [47].
The temperature at ORC condensed (Tc), considering an ambient
temperature (Tamb) of 293 K, was assumed to be 298 K (Table 2).
Cycle performances were evaluated using the following gures
of merit:
1) ORC net electrical efciency (hnet) Eq. (9), i.e. the ratio between
the electrical power by the ORC and Qin.
2) The heat utilization ratio (HUR) Eq. (10), i.e. the ratio between
Qae QAD and Qin. Qae is the heat extractable from the exhaust
air arising from the aerobic section by cooling it from T7 (Fig. 1)
to Tamb. QAD is the heat supplied by the combustion of the biogas
produced in the AD section. This gure allows the efciency of
transferring the amount of available heat generated both by the
anaerobic and the aerobic section to the ORC to be evaluated.
Consequently HUR results always 1 which is Qae QAD  Qin.
3) The anaerobic digestion heat utilization factor (ADUF) Eq. (11)
expresses the ratio between the electrical power of the ORC
and QAD. This gure allows the efciency in exploiting the heat
produced by biogas combustion to be evaluated.

hnet

Wex  Wp $heg
*100%
Qin

HUR

Qae QAD
Qin

ADUF

Wex  Wp $heg
*100%
QAD

For processing about 20,000 tonnes of OW per year, the aerobic

section consists of 8 biocells of about 400 m3 each where the material stays for 4 weeks. Every 3 days a biocell is emptied and then
loaded again with fresh material. For each biocell, by Eqs. (2)e(4), it
_ s, m
_ e and T for each l value (Fig. 3). m
_e
was possible calculate m
increased until achieving a maximum value around the 4e6th day,
after which it decreased constantly till the 28th day. Likewise, OW
temperature increased during the rst 8e10 days and then
remained quite constant until the end of the process.
Jokela et al. [48] found temperature levels in the aerobic treatment of pulp and paper mill sludge ranging from 325 to 345 K. Yang
et al. [49] showed a temperature of about 333 K during composting
of animal fodder. Similar temperatures values were also reported
by Vuorinen and Saharinen [50] during co-treatment of straw and
_ e, but lower T.
manure. Higher l caused a higher m
_ e and T evolution for each biocell it was possible to
Combining m
calculate the mean air rate and T7. Results show that T7 range from
about 331 K to about 339 K depending on the l value (Fig. 4).
_ e for each tonne of OW ranges from about
Likewise, the mean m
39 kg/tonne/day to 94 kg/tonne/day.
Under the assumption made, the ORC net electrical efciency
depends only on b (Fig. 5). For b ranging from 1.5 to 3.5, hnet ranges
from about 2% to about 6%. For ORC exploiting R123 as working
uid, Wang et al. [37] reported a thermal efciency ranging from
about 9 to 10% with an evaporator and condenser temperature of
406 K and 320 K, respectively, and a b of 8. Similar values have been
obtained with the ORC-R123 system using ocean thermal energy
conversion and operating at condenser and evaporator temperatures of 278 K and 313 K, respectively [38]. At a xed condenser
temperature of 318 K and an evaporation temperature of 353 K, the

(9)
(10)

(11)

Fig. 3. Effective air rate and temperature vs time (day) for effective to stoichiometric
mass air ratios (l) of 5, 7, 9 and 11 per single biocell.

F. Di Maria et al. / Renewable Energy 66 (2014) 461e467

Fig. 4. Mean air rate and temperature (T7) for different effective to stoichiometric mass
air rate ratios (l) for each tonne/day of organic waste.

ORC-R123 system achieved thermal efciencies of about 6e6.5%

[33]. In all these cases the compression ratio ranged from about 3 to
8. Schuster et al. [41] reported that for commercially available
biomass-red systems, electrical efciency ranged from 9% to 18%.
For the same systems with a power output >400 kW Dong et al.
[39] showed efciencies ranging from 16% to 18%. In these cases the
heating uid temperature was usually >400 K.
In the present study the maximum level achievable for b is
limited due to the temperature level of the exhaust air arising from
the aerobic treatment section (Fig. 1). An excessive increase in the
compression ratio could prevent any heat recovery from the

465

aerobic section. This aspect is also evident from the ADUF evolution
for different b and T8 values (Fig. 5). In fact, for lower T8 values, as b
is increased, T3 DTpp can be >T8. Hence no heat recovery is
possible and consequently the ADUF curve is interrupted (Fig. 5ae
d). The maximum ADUF is achieved for l 5 and T8 340 K
(Fig. 5a) and is about 22%. For a given b, as T8 rises, ADUF decreases
due to QAD >> Qae. When T8 > 335e340 K, depending on the l
value, ADUF can also be <hnet. In fact an increase in b causes a
consequent increase in the temperature of the exhaust gasses, T9
(Figs. 1 and 2). The higher is T9, the lower is the fraction of available
heat (i.e. Qae QAD) transferred to the ORC cycle affecting, over a
given extent, the ADUF value.
The phenomenon is clearly demonstrated by the HUR trend
(Fig. 6). For lower values of T8, the higher is b, the higher is HUR. If T8
is higher than 360 K, the increase in b has a lower, and in some
cases, negligible effect on HUR increase. This is due to the lower
incidence that the value assumed by T9 has on the maximum heat
transmittable to the ORC, because of the increase in b.
For T8 < 350 K, HUR rises rapidly as b is increased, achieving
values up to 60, whereas for higher T8 values, the HUR ranges from
about 1 to 2, depending on the l value. This means that better heat
exploitation is obtained for higher T8 but the ADUF is lower (Fig. 5).
For b from 1.5 to 2 and T8 from 335 K to 340 K, the system efciencies in exploitation of the biogas are quite high if compared
with that of other conventional systems such as internal combustion engines [15] of similar size.
On the basis of the assumptions made (Tables 1and 2), each
tonne of OW is able to produce about 93 Nm3 of biomethane. For
each tonne of OW for a given l, achievement of the imposed T8
requires a given amount of OW to be processed in the anaerobic
section. The ratio between the amount of OW processed in the
anaerobic and in the aerobic sections (OWR) is greatly inuenced

Fig. 5. Anaerobic digestion heat utilization factor (ADUF) and net electrical efciency (hnet) vs compression ratio (b) for effective to stoichiometric mass air rate ratios (l) of 5 (a), 7
(b), 9 (c), 11 (d) and for different T8 values.

466

F. Di Maria et al. / Renewable Energy 66 (2014) 461e467

Fig. 6. Heat utilization ratio (HUR) vs compression ratio (b) for effective to stoichiometric mass air rate ratios (l) of 5 (a), 7 (b), 9 (c), 11 (d) and for different T8 values.

by T8 (Fig. 7). Going from a T8 of about 330 K to about 520 K, OWR

increases from about 0.05 to 0.16. For a given T8, the higher is the
l, the higher is the OWR. Otherwise, the ORC system power
output for a facility processing about 20,000 tonnes of OW per
year ranges from about 1 kW to about 25 kW (Fig. 8) (i.e. microORC).
In any case, the most efcient exploitation of the QAD is
achievable for lower T8, l and b, even if the power output of the ORC
is about 1e1.5 kW.

4. Conclusions

Fig. 7. Ratio between the amount of organic waste processed in the anaerobic and
aerobic sections (OWR) vs T8 for different effective to stoichiometric mass air ratios
(l).

Fig. 8. Electrical power output of the organic Rankine cycle vs T8 for different effective
to stoichiometric mass air ratios (l) and compression ratios (b) for an aerobic facility
processing 20,000 tonnes/year of organic waste.

The heat generated during aerobic treatment of organic waste is

an interesting source of energy for renewable energy production.
Even with the rather low temperature levels of the aerobic process
exhaust air exploitation of the ORC system operating at low
compression ratios allows electrical energy to be generated. Increase in the exhaust air temperature using the biogas produced by
treating a given fraction of the organic waste in an anaerobic

F. Di Maria et al. / Renewable Energy 66 (2014) 461e467

digestion section can lead to a signicant increase in the power

output. These values are within the range covered by micro-ORC
systems. The best utilization efciency of the energetic content of
the biogas is achieved for low compression ratios and maximum
exhaust air temperatures, similar to that of the aerobic process.
Results show that biogas can be exploited with efciency levels
quite high compared to other conventional systems of similar size.

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