[Digestion] Orange Peels

[David Fulford]

Hello Tom,

A few years ago, I had a student looking at the digestion of orange peel on a
lab scale. The essential oil that Anand Karve talks aboiut is limonene, which is
a mild insecticide and bacteriacide. With large quantities of orange peel,
limonene is worth extracting, as it has a commercial value. It can be used as a
cleaning agent as well, as it dissolves grease.

In small quantities, orange peel could be digested if mixed with other materials.

Oranges do rot, so the limonene can be degraded. One approach may be to allow
the peels to rot down aerobically before they are added to a biogas plant. The
addition of already rotting oranges would ensure the right fungi/microbes are
present. Chopping up the peel would help the limonene to evaporate, as it has a fairly
low molecular weight (C10H16).

-- 
Best regards,
 David
  mailto:davidf at kingdombio.com

Friday, June 24, 2011, 4:47:50 AM, you wrote:

> Dear Tom,
> the peels can be charred in a charring kiln of the TLUD as well as of
> the oven and retort type. If the essential oil has been extracted from
> the peel, it can serve as feedstock in a biogas plant, but if the
> essential oil has not been extracted, I don't think that the peel
> could be digested in a biogas plant as the sole substrate, because the
> essential oil in the peel may kill the methanogens. But mixed with
> other material, it can be digested. One would have to conduct
> experiments to find out the correct ratio of peel to other substances.
> Yours
> A.D.Karve
> On Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 12:47 AM, Tom Miles <tmiles at trmiles.com> wrote:
>> I've had an inquiry from Southern Africa about orange peels. Does anyone
>> have experience carbonizing or gasifying orange peels?
>>
>> Do the burn in a TLUD?
>>
>> Do they make gas in an ARTI style compact digester?
>>
>> Can you char them? ( If you can char an apple or a pizza I guess you can
>> char an orange.)
>>
>> Tom Miles
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Digestion mailing list
>>
>> to Send a Message to the list, use the email address
>> Digestion at bioenergylists.org
>>
>> to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page
>> http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/digestion_lists.bioenergylists.org
>>
>> for more information about digestion, see
>> Beginner's Guide to Biogas
>> http://www.adelaide.edu.au/biogas/
>> and the Biogas Wiki http://biogas.wikispaces.com/
>>

-- 
Best regards,
 David
  mailto:davidf at kingdombio.com
   ********************************************************************
Dr David Fulford CEnv MEI, 15, Brandon Ave, Woodley, Reading RG5 4PU
d.j.fulford at btinternet.com, Tel: +44(0)118 326 9779 Mob: +44(0)7746 806401
Kingdom Bioenergy Ltd, www.kingdombio.com, davidf at kindombio.com