Keeping theory to a minimum without sacrificing scientific rigour, this comprehensive guide offers readers a practical approach to boosting the profitability of their biogas plants. The techniques explained allow for an assessment of a biogas plant throughout its entire life cycle, from critical review of the business plan to the selection of retrofits to recover additional income from the process by-products. This book:

• Details how to apply the scientific method to the review of biogas projects, considering technical flaws induced by marketing and human factors like cognitive bias.

• Explains a method for the quick startup of digesters.

• Proposes a thermodynamic approach to the selection of biogas upgrading solutions, making the choice independent of marketing claims or biased information.

• Provides a summary of possible marginal incomes from biogenic CO2, residual heat, and digestate.

• Includes the latest technological developments in laboratory measurement instruments and techniques beyond the mere biochemical methane potential (BMP) test.

• Includes a guideline to perform a technical due diligence, with examples of the most frequent errors in biogas plant business plans.

Building upon the laboratory test techniques published in the author’s complementary book, Managing Biogas Plants, this text helps readers who are investing in or managing existing industrial biomass plants to optimize processes and profit.

Mario Alejandro Rosato is an electric-electronic and environmental engineer. He is the CEO of Sustainable Technologies srl, an Italian company. A member of the World Scientific Journalists Association (WSJA), he has been in charge of AgroNotizie’s column on bioenergy since 2014 and has published over 300 articles in other journals. He has been running an anaerobic digestion laboratory in Italy since 2012, providing consultancy services to biogas plant owners and builders, and also serving as a technical expert in litigation cases about underperforming biogas plants. Since then, he has been providing technical training to hundreds of anaerobic digestion professionals, both in academia and industry, throughout the world. He provides technical training to the World Biogas Association (WBA) associates since 2023. In 2015 he was a member of the technical commission in charge of redacting the Italian norm on the biochemical methane potential (BMP) test protocol, his contribution focused on error propagation analysis and improving accuracy and precision. His first book on anaerobic digestion, Managing Biogas Plants: A Practical Guide, was published by CRC Press in 2017 and has been in BookAuthority's list of the best 100 books of chemical engineering since 2022.