Running digester on chicken litter and FYM

[HasthorpeGrange]

Is anyone running a digester on broiler litter and cattle muck from straw yards? The ad plant would be around 250 kw so not massive. Could have a daily supply of 3 ton cattle muck and 17 ton chicken muck. What would I need to balance out to creat a ‘ration’ for it? What are the complications of using a lot of high Nitrogen chicken litter. Any advice appreciated

 

[sjt01]

Is anyone running a digester on broiler litter and cattle muck from straw yards? The ad plant would be around 250 kw so not massive. Could have a daily supply of 3 ton cattle muck and 17 ton chicken muck. What would I need to balance out to creat a ‘ration’ for it? What are the complications of using a lot of high Nitrogen chicken litter. Any advice appreciated

We gave up feeding yard muck to our digester as I think it took as much energy to chop it up and get into the digester as it produced. We now just use the slurry (with top of silage clamp and whey). I doubt the C in straw would do much to balance N as much of it is locked up in lignin, which cannot be digested without some sort of treatment.

 

[HasthorpeGrange]

Part of the reason of wanted to put box muck in was to make it into an easier product to handle after. Either a liquid to spread with tanker or separated dry stuff. Saves having heaps sat around 2 years to rot.

 

[Hampton]

Plant not far from me was feeding it chicken muck and it had an explosive accident

 

[HasthorpeGrange]

Plant not far from me was feeding it chicken muck and it had an explosive accident

Maybe not a good idea by the sound of it then

 

[Hampton]

Maybe not a good idea by the sound of it then

Just got to make sure it’s in moderation and in a correct ratio

 

[Hampton]

Basically treat it like an animal. Protein, fibre, carbohydrates etc. not all protein etc

 

[HasthorpeGrange]

From what I’ve found online from very basic research it suggests 1 ton of poultry litter could produce £35 worth of gas. Based on 75% dry matter.
Balanced out with Maize and straw bedded cattle muck?

 

[The Son]

I use 3t per day of broiler litter, as part of an overall diet of 28t, consisting of Maize, wholecrop, FYM, potatoes and apple pomace at the moment. I agree with @stj01 that the fym uses to much energy, but I do think it adds to the mix regarding trace elements. The biggest issue with too much poultry litter is amonical Nitrogen in the tank, too much and the bacteria shut down, there were additives you could use that would help the problem, but not sure what they were, who supplied them, and if they are any good. Initially people were trying to run their plants on large amounts pf poultry litter, but I don't think it was that succesful.

 

[e3120]

We gave up feeding yard muck to our digester as I think it took as much energy to chop it up and get into the digester as it produced. We now just use the slurry (with top of silage clamp and whey). I doubt the C in straw would do much to balance N as much of it is locked up in lignin, which cannot be digested without some sort of treatment.

Do you agree with the theory of, or have you experimented with, an amount of aerobic breakdown before processing the fym?

I have miserly use of straw through a machine in mind, so no strawy slabs to worry about.

 

[teslacoils]

From what I’ve found online from very basic research it suggests 1 ton of poultry litter could produce £35 worth of gas. Based on 75% dry matter.
Balanced out with Maize and straw bedded cattle muck?

Whats 1t of 75%DM poultry manure work as NPK?

 

[HasthorpeGrange]

Roughly 8kg N not sure on the P & K

 

[Frodo]

Whats 1t of 75%DM poultry manure work as NPK?

More than £35 (spread), but the digester won’t use the p & k, so it should all be added value.

 

[shumungus]

It can be done.

Behind the scenes: £23m world-first poultry litter AD plant in Ballymena - Agriland.co.uk

A £23 million anaerobic digestion (AD) plant in Ballymena has become one of the first in the world to be fuelled solely by poultry litter.

www.agriland.co.uk

Byosis - Case studies - Tully AD plant Ballymena

byosis.com

Mono-Digestion of Chicken Litter: Tully Biogas Plant, Ballymena, Northern Ireland | Bioenergy

This IEA Bioenergy Task 37 case story from Northern Ireland describes the Tully biogas plant, which converts 40,000 t/a of chicken litter to 3 MW of renewable electricity and concentrated ammonium fertiliser

www.ieabioenergy.com

In the last link there is an attachment to a pdf file outlining the process, interestingly there is an artificial nitrogen product available at the end.
This plant is local to me and has recently achieved planning permission to expand from a capacity of 40,000 tons per annum to 200,000 tons per annum.

Tully Poultry litter plant extension gets green light despite objections

A PLANNING application to extend an existing Centralised Anaerobic Digestion Plant (CAD) at Tully Quarry - at a cost of £70 million - was approved at last week's Mid and East Antrim Planning Committee. The location is at 116 Moorfields Road and the applicant is Stream Bio Energy Ltd.

www.ballymenaguardian.co.uk

All things said I don't like it, it's taking a good fertilizer out of the food chain. Also it's sick at the minute and they are adding 9t of Maize meal to it per day among other things to sooth its belly.

 

[HasthorpeGrange]

That’s one hell of a large scale

It can be done.

Behind the scenes: £23m world-first poultry litter AD plant in Ballymena - Agriland.co.uk

A £23 million anaerobic digestion (AD) plant in Ballymena has become one of the first in the world to be fuelled solely by poultry litter.

www.agriland.co.uk

Byosis - Case studies - Tully AD plant Ballymena

byosis.com

Mono-Digestion of Chicken Litter: Tully Biogas Plant, Ballymena, Northern Ireland | Bioenergy

This IEA Bioenergy Task 37 case story from Northern Ireland describes the Tully biogas plant, which converts 40,000 t/a of chicken litter to 3 MW of renewable electricity and concentrated ammonium fertiliser

www.ieabioenergy.com

In the last link there is an attachment to a pdf file outlining the process, interestingly there is an artificial nitrogen product available at the end.
This plant is local to me and has recently achieved planning permission to expand from a capacity of 40,000 tons per annum to 200,000 tons per annum.

Tully Poultry litter plant extension gets green light despite objections

A PLANNING application to extend an existing Centralised Anaerobic Digestion Plant (CAD) at Tully Quarry - at a cost of £70 million - was approved at last week's Mid and East Antrim Planning Committee. The location is at 116 Moorfields Road and the applicant is Stream Bio Energy Ltd.

www.ballymenaguardian.co.uk

All things said I don't like it, it's taking a good fertilizer out of the food chain. Also it's sick at the minute and they are adding 9t of Maize meal to it per day among other things to sooth its belly

 

[shumungus]

That’s one hell of a large scale

Moy Park is involved in it.

 

[HasthorpeGrange]

There’s a lot of Moy Park suppliers around where I am now

 

[sjt01]

Do you agree with the theory of, or have you experimented with, an amount of aerobic breakdown before processing the fym?

I have miserly use of straw through a machine in mind, so no strawy slabs to worry about.

We feed slurry with straw, and separate out the digestate solids (fibre) after digestion.
If the digester is running low on solids, we re-feed the separated solids, and did this for 9 months continuously at one point, taking no solids away from the digester.
That means we must have been digesting lignin, and having noticed a fine white mycelium over the separated solids heap, I came up with the idea that the cause was some initial fungal breakdown of the lignin allowing the anaerobic bacteria in the digester to continue to break it down.
I wonder if aerobic composting of fym would break it down enough to do the same, without using up the anaerobically digestible material during the composting. We hope to get a compost windrow turner later this year, and might get some composted fym tested for biogas potential.

 

[Ed5643]

Is anyone running a digester on broiler litter and cattle muck from straw yards? The ad plant would be around 250 kw so not massive. Could have a daily supply of 3 ton cattle muck and 17 ton chicken muck. What would I need to balance out to creat a ‘ration’ for it? What are the complications of using a lot of high Nitrogen chicken litter. Any advice appreciated

There are a few digesters about that feed on a high concentration of broiler litter, we feed 85% of the solid feed as litter, its a gradual process to get to those percentages but doable, as said we use to feed FYM as well but have decreased the amount as above as it just increases the DM of the digester to much

 

[Birch Solutions]

Is anyone running a digester on broiler litter and cattle muck from straw yards? The ad plant would be around 250 kw so not massive. Could have a daily supply of 3 ton cattle muck and 17 ton chicken muck. What would I need to balance out to creat a ‘ration’ for it? What are the complications of using a lot of high Nitrogen chicken litter. Any advice appreciated

Our Biologist would be able to advise and offer testing of your potential digestate to ensure you have the optimum balance required. [email protected]