The Lettinga Award 2024 was awarded to the project “A3DERA: Autonomous Automatic Anaerobic Digestion Enhancer for Rural Areas” submitted by Dr. Alejandro Vargas, Dr. Julián Carrillo-Reyes and Dr. Iván Moreno-Andrade from the Institute of Engineering of UNAM, Mexico. The judges applaud the focus on enhancing anaerobic digestion for small digesters in rural areas. The local rural implementation, in combination with the potentially broad application, underlines the social relevance of this project.

The winning project concerns the creation of an interface that automatically controls rural digesters. This autonomous system enhances the independence and robustness of the digesters, while greatly increasing their efficiency in biogas and fertilizer production and decreasing water and energy consumption. Based on the researchers experience and knowledge on anaerobic digestion, microbiology and feedback control, this algorithm will be developed during the project.

The objective is to increase the use of rural biodigesters in agricultural areas by aiding in the operation, optimization and maintenance of the systems through automatization. By developing a user-friendly autonomous system that can measure, maintain and adapt the digesters in an continuous way, the user does not need extensive understanding or difficult skills to operate the digester. This greatly enhances the possible application in agriculture.