Ricerc@Sapienza

The proposed project aims at drawing a conceptual model to estimate the environmental profile of H2 and CH4 production through dark fermentation. Specifically, the project will be focused on the accounting of CO2 emissions and savings for each unit operation of the combined process, with the purpose of estimating and quantifying the carbon footprint in different configurations. To this regard, a life cycle approach will be adopted to estimate and quantify the carbon footprint of the process, including namely the direct/indirect CO2 emissions and the CO2 savings from compost utilization in agricultural applications, reuse of other valuable products (if any) in industrial processes and biogas exploitation for energy production. Internationally recognized methodologies for the accounting of CO2 emissions and savings will be applied, which will provide the expected results a wide validity and replicability even in trans-national contexts.