Energy management: a synthesis of scientific publications on biodigestion for waste management

Abstract Environmentally friendly options for waste disposal and the need for expansion and diversification of the national and international energy matrix are relevant issues today. One technique that supports these goals is anaerobic biodigestion, which generates clean energy from biomass. Accordingly, our goal was to perform a quantitative and qualitative assessment of scientific publications on biodigestion in order to understand the evolution of the technique, which is essential for environmental and economic sustainability. Ninety-nine articles indexed in the Scientific Electronic Library Online between 1980 and 2015 were evaluated. The results showed a significant increase in scientific publications since 2000 which addressed, in addition to environmentally friendly waste management, the energy issue, with the use of biogas. This increase in the number of publications coincides with increased awareness on natural resource management and concern about global energy management. Most of the articles involved a general evaluation of the process, using mainly animal waste from pigs, and emphasizing biodigestion as waste management, since pig farming produces a large volume of waste and has a high environmental impact.