Objective
Ashleigh Farms Limited are successful pig rearers for the pork meat industry. Currently they own over 1,500 sows that produce a combined total of 37,000 pigs per year. The pig farming industry is significant across Europe and it is increasingly becoming more and more difficult for pig farmers to be profitable and competitive. There are numerous legislations that are inhibiting the ability for pig farmers to prosper. Regulations and targets in place to control pollution and contamination are leaving pig farmers with less and less economical use for pig slurry. Pig herds are constantly growing and the slurry amounts are quickly reaching a crisis point. In order to improve margins and remain in business pig farmers require an innovative solution. We have developed a novel and innovative microwave pre-treatment technology that increases the compatibility of pig slurry for anaerobic digestion. Anaerobic digestion of pig slurry is currently economically unviable as there is a requirement to add organic carbon sources in the ratio of 8:1. The microwave pre-treatment process converts hard carbon in the slurry, which cannot be digested by bacteria, into soluble carbon, thus increasing the total bio-available carbon in the slurry and improving the Carbon:Nitrogen ratio. Therefore the costs of using AD with pig slurry, are extremely high. Our innovative pre-treatment technology removes the need to add organic material and increases the biogas yield from slurry by 20%. This therefore provides farmers with a realistic solution to deal with the ever-growing amounts of slurry produced. With a payback of 4 years, our biowave system provides an environmentally-friendly and cost-effective method for pig slurry treatment that eases farmers’ legislative burdens. It helps reduce energy costs and helps to achieve the EU goal of sourcing 20% of all energy consumed from renewable energy.
Fields of science
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- engineering and technologyenvironmental biotechnologybioremediationbioreactors
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsrenewable energy
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringwaste management
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringsensors
- agricultural sciencesanimal and dairy sciencedomestic animalsanimal husbandry
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
IA - Innovation actionCoordinator
CAPPAGH WATERFORD
Ireland
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.