Benyamin Khoshnevisan

University of Southern Denmark | SDU · Department of Chemical Engineering, Biotechnology and Environmental Technology

The growing population and the consequent protein scarcity have led to innovation in proteinaceous feed production methods. In this regard, the upcycling of nitrogen rich effluents into microbial protein (MP)/single cell protein (SCP) is considered as an innovative solution. This paper aims to employ life cycle assessment to identify the most envir...

Biological upgrading of biogas, a sub-category of “power to gas” technology, has provoked great interest because it enables the secure storage of surplus renewable electricity within existing gas pipeline infrastructure in the form of biomethane yielding low storage costs and high environmental benefit. However, a barrier to commercialization of th...

In this study, a superstructure-based decision making model is presented to determine the most sustainable biorefining pathway of organic fraction of municipal solid waste, i.e., anaerobic digestion, fermentation for bio-succinic acid and lactic acid recovery, and single cell protein production, as well as the best downstream process for the produc...

The progressive exhaustion of fossil energy resources and the environmental problems provoked by the excessive use of these resources have driven us to transit from a fossil fuel dependent economy to a more bio-based economy. In this regard, exploiting the organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) for producing high value bioproducts and bi...

The escalating global demand for protein and the imperative to meet sustainable development goals have driven the emergence of biotransformation platforms, with methanotrophs showing significant potential in this field. In this paper, the metabolism, nutritional requirements, cultivation strategies, and bioreactors of methanotrophs are reviewed. In...

Transitioning to the well-recognized concept of the circular economy is ‎inevitable in well-developed, developing, and emerging economies. The valorization of biowastes into value-added products has long ‎been investigated and shown to be a promising sustainable solution compared to their fossil-based ‎counterparts. However, it has yet to be proper...

Plastic pollution has emerged as a critical global environmental challenge, exacerbated by the extensive use of plastics in the healthcare industry. This study examines the environmental impacts of single-use plastic sterilization wraps versus reusable sterilization cases (RSCs) commonly used in operating theaters (OTs). We employ Life Cycle Assess...

This study addresses a critical gap in environmental assessments by focusing on petrochemical port operations, an area traditionally overlooked in life cycle assessments (LCAs) of material supply chains. This study investigates various methods of loading for 22 petrochemical products i.e., gas, liquid, container, tanker, and bulk loading; at the bi...

Direct Download Link of the Podcast: https://www.biofueljournal.com/jufile?ar_sfile=2375983 Abstract: Biobutanol stands out as an advanced renewable biofuel, yet its production through fermentation yields a low butanol concentration, necessitating expensive and energy-intensive separation methods, particularly by distillation. Alternative approach...

The sugar industry is considered a high-energy-demand and wasteful industrial sector in many developing countries. Such a high energy demand can undermine the sugar industry's economic and environmental aspects. Shifting from a linear economy model to a circular economy (CE) can help this industrial sector solve the current economic and environment...

The consistent population growth is directly tied to the annual rise in livestock production, placing a substantial burden on the crop sector that supplies animal feed. The Danish government has been relying on importing soybeans and soybean meal to be used as animal feed. However, this sparked environmental concerns that require more environmental...

This study presents a sustainable end-of-life (EoL) value chain scenario assessment framework for decommissioned wind turbine blades (WTBs) to address the challenge of increased volumes of WTBs reaching their EoL. Findings from the previous studies highlight that WTBs EoL scenarios and their upscaling are yet to be addressed environmentally and eco...

Excessive phosphorus (P) along with drained water from farmland in the arid and semiarid watersheds when entering into water bodies brings about serious environmental problems in the aquatic ecosystem. It is critical to explore variations in watershed P balance and the relationship between anthropogenic P input and riverine total phosphorus (TP) ex...

Finding new and sustainable proteinaceous feed ingredients, especially those produced from locally available resources, is at the top of the agenda of many countries, including Denmark, to become feed protein self-sufficient. Protein concentrate (PC) production via the biorefining of green biomass has attracted considerable interest in recent years...

The biorefining of biowastes, specifically the organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW), into biofuels and high-value products is an energy-demanding process, still immature, and largely dependent on the process configuration and efficiency of employed microorganisms. Such issues might undermine the environmental sustainability of the bior...

Acknowledging that resource efficiency as well as ecosystem protection are crucial goals to tackle has led to a deep rethinking in the way wastewater has been dealt with up to the 20th century. Indeed, pollution reduction to harmless levels has been the main focus of conventional wastewater treatment plants which have deployed effective and reliabl...

The organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) is a widely-available promising feedstock for biofuel production. However, the presence of different inhibitors originating from fruit and food/beverage wastes as well as recalcitrant lignocellulosic fractions hampers its bioconversion. This necessitates a pretreatment to augment the biodigestib...

Liquid transportation biofuel production is a promising strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Hydrothermal gasification (HTG) has shown great potential as an effective method for valorizing wet biomass. The high-quality syngas produced using the HTG process can be chemically/biochemically converted to liquid biofuels. Therefore, this paper a...

The challenge of handling the enormous amount of bio-waste that is globally produced on an annual basis can become an opportunity by exploiting such residues for bioenergy production in the form of biogas or biomethane. The application of anaerobic digestion to bio-waste is still limited due to their specific characteristics (e.g., recalcitrant mat...

Integrated rice-crayfish farming (IRCF) is becoming a popular agricultural production mode and has expanded rapidly in China. However, serious concerns over the ecologically and environmentally friendly development of IRCF are still growing. Despite its importance, there is no comprehensive assessment study of IRCF to evaluate its green and sustain...

Biofuel is a nontoxic and renewable fuel and could be used in diesel engines in combination with diesel to reduce emissions. The effects of various biodiesel–ethanol–diesel (BED) blends were investigated on the engine power, specific fuel consumption (SFC), engine vibration, and pollutant emissions. The engine experiments were performed using nine...

Nitrogen (N) pollution originating from agricultural land is among the major threats to shallow groundwater (SG). Soil N losses due to the SG table fluctuation are neglected, although a large number of studies have been conducted to evaluate N losses through leaching and runoff. Herein, the characteristics of N losses driven by SG table fluctuation...

In this study, the integration of the electrocoagulation (EC) process with anaerobic digestion as a novel in-situbiomethanation approach was considered for the first time. As a result of this integration (iron electrodes, current density of 1.5 mA/cm2 and an exposure mode of 10-min-ON/ 30-min-OFF) the carbon dioxide content of biogas reached below...

Paddy fields-based cropping systems are usually located in areas with dense water networks, so nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) losses from rice paddy fields caused by runoff might pose a serious pollution risk to their surrounding water bodies. However, current research over establishing a low fertilizer input paddy-based cropping system with compr...

The world has been grappling with the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic for more than a year. Various sectors have been affected by COVID-19 and its consequences. The waste management system is one of the sectors affected by such unpredictable pandemics. The experience of COVID-19 proved that adaptability to such pandemics and the post-pandemic era h...

The concerns over food security and protein scarcity, driven by population increase and higher standards of living, have pushed scientists toward finding new protein sources. A considerable proportion of resources and agricultural lands are currently dedicated to proteinaceous feed production to raise livestock and poultry for human consumption. Th...

Wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) have extensive energy processes that undermine their economic and environmental performance. In this context, the integration of wastewater treatment with other biochemical processes such as co-digestion of sludge with organic wastes, and production of value-added products at their downstream processes will shift...

The growing volume of municipal solid waste (MSW) generated worldwide often undergoes open dumping, landfilling, or uncontrolled burning, releasing massive pollutants and pathogens into the soil, water, and air. On the other hand, MSW can be used as a valuable feedstock in biological and thermochemical conversion processes to produce bioenergy carr...

Although the utilization of biosolids in agricultural lands is widely considered as an effective way to improve resource reuse, the presence of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) severely restricts biosolids returning to fields. A 12-year long-term experiment with different biosolids application rates (from 0 to 36 t ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹) was conducted to stu...

This study focused on the monitoring of a biogas digester (BD) for treatment of food waste using an e-nose system. The e-nose system along with Principal Component Analysis (PCA) were applied to monitor the gaseous headspace of a mesophilic BD. In this method the digester was allowed to feed based on monitoring indices, i.e. “recovery time” and “po...

The development of anaerobic digestion (AD) plants has been considered as a solution to overcome the depletion of fossil resources and the increasing environmental pollution caused by the over-use of fossil fuels. However, there are some challenges which may undermine the sustainability of the AD including its associated up- and downstream strategi...

Gaseous and liquid anaerobic digestion (AD) streams, currently are at best used for electricity and heat production or simply spreading at the fields, respectively. However, electricity and heat are economically produced from other renewables and advanced fertilizers are needed to avoid leaching and boost nutrients capture. Hence, AD seeks new opp...

Apple is among the most consumed fruits in the world and the expansion of their processing is increasing the generation of waste such as apple pomace. It finds some applications in food and feed systems, anaerobic digestion, and composting; however it most ends in landfills or in informal disposal. Therefore, waste management strategies that addres...

Apple is among the most consumed fruits in the world and the expansion of their processing is increasing the generation of waste such as apple pomace. It finds some applications in food and feed systems, anaerobic digestion, and composting; however it most ends in landfills or in informal disposal. Therefore, waste management strategies that addres...

Apple is among the most consumed fruits in the world and the expansion of their processing is increasing the generation of waste such as apple pomace. It finds some applications in food and feed systems, anaerobic digestion, and composting; however it most ends in landfills or in informal disposal. Therefore, waste management strategies that addres...

Anaerobic digestion of chicken manure was carried out in this study basing on central composite design to identify the most optimal strategy for biochar supplementation. Model of cumulative methane production (CMP) was established by using response surface methodology. The optimal conditions predicted accordingly, including manure loading of 51.8 g...

Rice production, despite its important role in food security, could bring about environmental problems such as methane emissions and polluting water resources. To decrease such negative environmental impacts, the co-culture of rice with ecologically friendly aquatic animals such as crabs has shown promising results. However, there are still serious...

Rice-crab co-culture (RC) is an environmentally friendly, agri-aquaculture technique, however, its knowledge about soil nutrients status and their composition in rice grain has remained unexplored. The aim of current study is to explore this deficiency. Thus, a field survey and a field experiment were combinedly carried out at Panjin City, China. T...

Single cell protein (SCP) provides an alternative protein source to partially replace the conventional agricultural resources and support the increased nutritional needs. Inexpensive feeding source is one of the key limiting factors for the expansion of SCP production. The present study examined the valorization of biogas derived from the anaerobic...

The anaerobic co-digestion (AcoD)of organic substrates has reportedly shown synergistic effects, but the current indices used to evaluate the magnitude of such effects cannot well support the findings and in some cases bring about confusion. In this paper, meta-analysis was performed through a database compiled from 124 peer-reviewed articles focus...

Paddy fields emit considerable amounts of methane (CH4), which is a potent greenhouse gas (GHG) and, thereby, causes significant environmental impacts, even as they generate wealth and jobs directly in the agricultural sector, and indirectly in the food-processing sector. Application of biochar in rice production systems will not just help to trunc...

The emission of nitrogenous pollution from agricultural lands in form of ammonia volatilization, leaching, runoff, N2O emissions, etc. is still a serious challenge to which agricultural sector faces. In this context, a vast number of decision support systems have been developed and tested to find the best nitrogen application rate. These models are...

Bacterial metabolism would change thermodynamic characteristics of substrate under anaerobic digestion process. Such phenomena would cause substrate shows exothermic characteristics which are in contrast to the current thermodynamic knowledge. Rice straw (RS) is prone to self-heating which can be employed to increase the digestate temperature accor...

An ever increasing demand for animal protein products has posed serious challenges for managing the increasing quantities of livestock manure. The choice of treatment technologies is still a complicated task and considerable debates over this issue still continue. To build a clearer picture of manure treatment framework, this study was conducted to...

The excessive application of manure has caused a high load of phosphorus (P) in the North China Plain. Having an understanding of how manure application affects soil P changes and its transport between different soil layers is crucial to reasonably apply manure P and reduce the associated loss. Based on our 28-year field experiments, the compositio...

Olive agro-industry is a chemical- and energy-intensive agricultural activity and given its large scale globally is faced with serious challenges from the sustainability perspective. On the other hand, different by-products and residues generated are not generally used and end up as wastes. Therefore, it is of crucial importance to design and imple...

Decentralized biogas facilities have become an important component of agricultural sectors in Chinese rural area. This study is the first attempt to investigate how transition in Chinese rural areas affects the revolution of decentralized biogas facilities and its sustainability. The characteristics of the household biogas digesters (HBD), simple b...

The bioaugmentation is crucial to improve the energy-efficient process for anaerobic digestion of organic wastes at high ammonia levels. Genomic insights into the intricate microbial networks at a high ammonia level remain underexplored. The present study showed that the addition of Methanoculleus sp. DTU887 remarkably enhanced the methane producti...

A sustainable management of environment and agriculture is crucial to protect soil, water, and air during intensified agriculture practices as well as huge industrial and transportation activities. A promising tool to address these challenges could be the application of biochar, a carbonaceous product of biomass pyrolysis. The efficiency of biochar...

On-farm greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from cows, manure, and fields (to produce feed) comprise more than 72 % of the United States milk carbon footprint. Recent studies examined the impact of dietary strategies on enteric methane emissions, however, tradeoffs between enteric methane and manure related GHG emissions have not been determined. Thus,...

Conventional treatment of residual resources relies on nutrient removal to limit pollution. Recently, nutrient recovery technologies have been proposed as more environmentally and energetically efficient strategies. Nevertheless, the upcycling of recovered resources is typically limited by their quality or purity. Specifically, nitrogen extracted f...

The use of livestock manure as a substitution for synthetic nitrogen (N) fertilizers is recommended to improve the sustainable use of manure nutrients and alleviate the adverse impacts of synthetic N fertilizers on the environment. A thorough understanding of how such substitutions affect reactive N losses and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in cere...

Human waste (HW) poses environmental and public health risk, thereby its sustainable management is becoming a serious growing challenge. Anaerobic digestion (AD) has long been introduced as an environmental-friendly and sustainable waste management technology with bio-methane as final product. Energy production via AD of HW would significantly cont...

The direct use of digestate on farmlands as soil amendment is becoming an uneconomic option for farmers. Moreover, there are serious environmental concerns about its oversupply in regions with intensive biogas plants. Downstream technologies, offering innovative upcycling methods to handle huge amounts of digestate, have absorbed great interest in...

Nitrogen mismanagement is a serious concern worldwide since farmers usually overuse chemical fertilizers to increase yield, and consequently their income. The oversupply of chemical fertilizers, particularly nitrogen-based fertilizers, has brought about serious environmental problems, among others, deterioration of water quality, global warming imp...

This study was aimed at environmentally analyzing an ultrasound-assisted system converting waste cooking oil (WCO) into biodiesel in order to make decisions on its operating conditions. Twenty-seven different experiments (scenarios) carried out at three levels of methanol content, methanolysis temperature, and reaction duration, were compared from...

This research was conducted in Bojnord County, Iran, to identify the environmental impacts of onion production under different farm management strategies and their related soil, water, and air emissions. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) with a cradle-to-gate approach was employed in the present study to introduce the hotspots in onion production life cy...

Conventional microbial protein production relies on the usage of pure chemicals and gases. Natural gas, which is a fossil resource, is the common input gas for bacterial protein production. Alternative sources for gas feedstock and nutrients can sufficiently decrease the operational cost and environmental impact of microbial protein production proc...

Biogas production from anaerobic digestion of grass was evaluated in this study taking into account two harvesting machines, i.e., a Disc-mower and an Excoriator, under diverse operating conditions. In addition, the application of generated biogas either in a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant for thermal and electrical energy production or as tra...

Purpose Diminishing fossil resources and environmental concerns associated with their vast utilization have been in focus by energy policy makers and researchers. Among the different scenarios put forth to commercialize biofuels, various biorefinery concepts have aroused global interests because of their ability in converting biomass into a spectru...

The application of life cycle assessment (LCA) as a systematic approach for identifying the environmental hot spots in waste management strategies has been increasing. Despite some underlying problems, LCA has been shown to be an appropriate approach to quantify the environmental impacts caused by distinctive solid waste management scenarios. Altho...

Biodiesel degradation through autoxidation radical chain reactions adversely affect long-term storage stability, high thermal oxidation stability, and consequently biodiesel consumers’ acceptance. Propyl gallate, the most promising synthetic antioxidant, is widely used to address this challenge, however, as proposed by the National Toxicology Progr...

This study attempted to apply life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology to compare distinctive management strategies when biologically treating source-sorted organic household waste (SSOHW). The management strategies included different pretreatment methods of SSOHW prior to anaerobic digestion and different biogas applications. Biopulp technology, sc...

The increasing energy demands as a consequence of fast-growing global population and higher living standards over the last few decades have triggered huge interest in finding new energy resources. In this context, biomass is an environmentally friendly renewable resource with huge potentials to generate power as well as various useful chemicals and...

The production of biogas from sulfate-rich materials under anaerobic digestion results in the formation of hydrogen sulfide (H2S). The recommended level of H2S in the produced biogas for direct combustion purposes is in the range of 0.02 to 0.05% w/w (200 to 500 ppm), therefore, desulfurization is required to avoid damages to combustion equipment a...

Renewable energy generation through biorefineries is increasingly considered as more sustainable in comparison with fossil-based fuels as well as single-product renewable energy systems. However, biorefineries have many system variations, and therefore, the evaluation of their environmental performance and comparison with conventional systems befor...

Three distinctive start-up strategies of biogas reactors fed with source-sorted organic fraction of municipal solid waste were investigated to reveal the most reliable procedure for rapid process stabilization. Moreover, the experimental results were compared with mathematical modeling outputs. The initial inoculations to start-up the reactors were...

Poultry industry is an important production system due to providing remarkable portion of the human food and protein needs. Considering the necessity of environmental protection, the amount of environmental impacts of a turkey production unit in Iran was determined using life cycle assessment method. The required information were collected through...

We respond to the recent article “Prognostication of energy use and environmental impacts for recycle system of municipal solid waste management”, published in the Journal of Cleaner Production by Nabavi-Pelesaraei et al. (2017), (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.04.033). Our aim is to show that a number of incorrect assumptions and methodolo...

In the present study, a DI diesel engine operating on various diesel/biodiesel blends containing different amounts of polymer waste was thermodynamically scrutinized using two exergy-based methods, i.e., exergoeconomic and exergoenvironmental analyses for the first time. Exergoeconomic and exergoenvironmental parameters were calculated for five fue...

In recent years, livestock production sector has been significantly grown associated with increasing of environmental impacts. In the present research 90 broiler farms in Isfahan Providence, Iran, were considered to be evaluated in point view of environmental impacts. The aim of the present research is reducing environmental impacts of the studied...

Energy consumption and its negative environmental impacts are of interesting topics in the recent centuries. Agricultural systems are both energy users and suppliers in the form of bio energy and play a key role in world economics as well as food security. A high amount of energy from different sources is used in this sector while researchers who i...

Wheat is considered as one of the most important strategic crops in Iran, and Iran agricultural ministry has some special plans to encourage farmers to cultivate this crop, so that farmers are willing to cultivate this crop through the country. The previous studies carried out by researchers in Iran showed that the energy consumption in cultivation...