Pig manure as a gold mine
This autumn, French pig cooperative Cooperl will make the next step in further valorisation of pig manure. In Lamballe, the cooperative is about to finalise the construction of a large digester facility. That facto- ry will be able to digest 38,000 tonnes of solid pig manure annually. The digester will start to operate this autumn. The facility will be among the largest of its kind in Europe. Apart from specific manure products, the digester shall also produce 7.5 million m3
of natural gas,
sufficient to supply 3,200 homes. The digester will be ‘fed’ by the solid fraction from pig manure as well as fat products coming from the neighbouring Cooperl pig slaughter- house. The manures solid fraction will come from companies working with the Trac technology. There are currently 62 pig producers working with the Trac system. Annually, they will yield 20,000 tonnes of pig ma- nure together, with roughly 26-30% dry matter content. That volume is growing fast, as when building new finishing pig facilities, 57% of the pig entrepreneurs opts to include Cooperl’s Trac system. Cooperl esti- mates that by 2022 there will be sufficient amounts of Trac users to be able to pick up 38,000 tonnes of solid manure in total per year. For a guaranteed period of 12 years, pig producers will earn at least € 20 per tonne for the solid part of their manure. After the digestion process, the digestate will be processed to become organic fertiliser products in 150 different varieties. It comes as
pelletised product having a dry matter content of 90%. The processing will start with the pressing of the digestate to remove even more liquid substances. After that, another set of steps will follow until the product has been dried and been made hygienic. For the drying process, the factory uses bone meal of animal origin, both obtained from its own slaughterhouse as well as from third parties, which for whichever rea- son is not suitable for use in pet food. As such, no fossil fuels are necessary to create the pellets.
The enormous digester which is located right next to the Cooperl slaughterhouse in Britanny. This facility will process 38,000 tonnes of solid fraction of pig manure per year.
Figure 1 - Digestate converted into fertiliser and pure water. Raw digestate
Annually, the Cooperl group processes 150.000 tonnes of digestate into water and organic manure, following the steps below.
Liquid fraction Solid fraction
Centrifugation Concentrate Drying Evaporation Fertiliser Condensate Ammonium sulphate Pure water Stripping ▶PIG PROGRESS | Volume 35, No. 6, 2019 23
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