Institute of Chemical Engineering, Biotechnology and Environmental Technology, Niels Bohrs Allé 1, 5230 Odense M, Denmark Characterisation of the organic pools in biomass related biochemical methane potential PhD Student Ali Heidarzadeh Vazifehkhoran Background Biogas production is the most socio-economically cost-efficient technology for energy production and reducing GHG emissions. Biogas production has a triple positive effect: Reduces evaporation of the strong climate gasses methane and laughter gas from manure Provides renewable energy to substitute fossil fuel Makes nitrogen in the manure more accessible for the crops. In Denmark, the aim is to be independent of fossil fuels before 2050 and this is expected to be reached by implementing further biogas plants on Danish territory. Objectives The PhD study is part of the BioChain project from the Danish Council for Strategic Research the Commission on Sustainable Energy and Environment. The PhD study is expected to contribute to the specific goal for the WP3 research which is “Develop analytical methods that enable systematic quantification of biogas production and carbon and nutrient pools in important biomass categories from livestock farms, crop production etc.” This research shall contribute to achievement of the overall goal of the project which is: “provide the theoretical and methodological scientific knowledge needed to develop and implement the value chain framework and computational models that can generate valid information of high relevance for political decision making, investors, stakeholders in the environmental and biotechnology market, and scientists.” In order to fulfill the overall objective, this study will be carried out with the specific objective of: Develop a method/instrument that in time assess biochemical methane potential (BMP) of biomass Develop a method to characterize the most important pools of carbon species and the change in pool size during digestion in biogas reactors. Abstract In this project our aim is to investigate the biomass characterization, biogas production and biochemical methane potential from animal manure, plant biomass and slaughterhouse. The new and fast analytical methods such as NIR will be used in this investigation for characterization of biomasses and lignocellulosic materials for BMP prediction. The BMP tests are carried out in batch digester by VDI 4630 method. In addition, the biogas production and biomasses characterization will be carried out in the continuous bioreactors. The organic pools will be characterized before, after and during the anaerobic digestion to study their changes during the fermentation. The characterization of solid wastes is a necessary step before they can be used in anaerobic digestion. The quantities of different compounds and anaerobic biodegradability are important information required to characterize waste. The BMP test is one of the most relevant tests for assessing the biodegradability of waste materials which is very time-consuming. Using alternative methods for determining the anaerobic biodegradability of solid waste would be cost-effective and time-saving. A great advantage of NIRS in determining BMP is the reduction in measurement time from at least one month for chemical determination to a couple of minutes for production of near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) spectra.