What is anaerobic digestion?
Anaerobic digestion is a well understood and mature technology which uses a naturally occurring biological process carried out by microbes. There are over 700 operational anaerobic digestion sites in the UK.
At Acorn, agricultural material including crops from rotations and manure will be fed into the anaerobic digesters. The agricultural material, used as a food source by microbes, is broken down into biogas. Biogas is made up of both biomethane and biogenic CO2. Biomethane is a green fuel which can be used directly to heat homes and biogenic CO2 can replace fossil-derived sources in the food and beverage industry. Digestate, a product of the process, will be returned to farmers to assist with growing crops and replacing unsustainable artificial fertilisers.
What will Acorn use to feed the digesters?
Acorn will use distillery co-products to feed the digesters. This includes:
Pot Ale / Syrup
Draff
Acorn will also be using agricultural materials, including:
Break Crops
Manures
Acorn will not be processing household food waste nor sewage.
The model of the anaerobic digestion site below reflects a site that can only process distillery and agricultural materials, it is unable to use alternative feedstocks.
3D Models