Mancilla Leytón, Juan ManuelFernández Rodríguez, María JoséLama-Calvente, David de laBorja, R.2025-01-242025-01-242024-01Mancilla Leytón, J.M., Fernández Rodríguez, M.J., Lama-Calvente, D.d.l. y Borja, R. (2024). Evaluation of batch mesophilic anaerobic digestion of waste Euro banknotes for methane Production: Preliminary studies and kinetic approach. Waste Management, 173, 22-28. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2023.11.003.0956-053X1879-2456https://hdl.handle.net/11441/167451The European Central Bank is striving to find environmentally friendly alternative methods of waste disposal. In 2020, it decided to end the disposal of Waste Euro Banknotes (W€B) in landfills and planned to use them for recycling and/or energy recovery. Despite being recognized as an effective tool in a circular economy model, there are no reported studies on the use of W€B as a substrate in anaerobic digestion (AD). Thus, the aim of this research was to assess the viability of W€B to be converted into high-value-added energy products (mainly methane) through AD. W€B (€10 and €20 denominations) provided by the Bank of Spain were used. Biochemical methane potential (BMP) tests of pre-treated (grinded) and untreated W€B were assessed at mesophilic temperature. The ultimate methane yield was considerably higher for pre-treated W€B (334 ± 23 NmL CH4 g VS-1 added) than for untreated W€B (297 ± 14 NmL CH4 g VS-1 added). The Logistic or Sigmoidal kinetic model adequately fit the experimental data and allowed for obtaining the kinetic parameters of each case studied. In this sense, an increase of 22.4 % in the maximum methane production rate (Rmax) was observed for the pre-treated W€B (52.5 ± 0.9 mL CH4 (g VS·d)-1 compared to the untreated W€B (16.2 ± 1.8 mL CH4 (g VS·d)-1). According to the obtained results, AD may be a good alternative for the energetic valorization and recycling of W€B.application/pdf7 p.engAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/biochemical methane potentialpre-treatmentcottoncellulose35 waste euro banknotes (W€B).info:eu-repo/semantics/articleinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccesshttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2023.11.003