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Reference: Museo della Merda
ANAEROBIC DIGESTION
One way of managing excess cow manure is Anaerobic Digestion, the process of converting organic waste into bio gas and electricity. The process starts by thousands of bacteria breaking down the material, abstracting bio gas in the form of methane and CO2. The bio gas is then converted into electricity that is either used directly on the farm or put back into the national grid.
HOW
IT
WORKS
Reference: Museo della Merda
WHAT COULD THIS ARCHITECTURE LOOK LIKE?
Following the bio gas abstraction, you are left with a secondary waste by-product called digestate. Whilst some of this can be used to fertile the field, it leaves farmers with the same problem: too much digestate, not enough storage. This farm in Italy have found a way of transforming excess digestate into a material called 'merdacotta' by mixing excess digestate with clay and straw and then firing the material at 1000C.
'The principle of the merdacotta products is anti-design - substance over form, shit over shape.'
