Itaru Kourakata

Topic: Energy Recovery from Mushroom Culture Waste and the Use of Its Ash as Fertilizer

Biomass is one of the most important primary and renewable energy sources. Among agricultural and forestry by-products, cultivation waste from mushroom production is considered to have several advantages, such as low collection cost if used by the same production facility, and it contains many inorganic nutrients, relative to woody biomass resources. Some kinds of mushroom culture waste contain plant nutrients (P, K, Mg, and Si); ash from such biomass waste can be used as fertilizer. Here we suggest new concept for a more economical method of using this waste, namely, cascade utilization of enokidake mushroom culture waste, as fuel, followed by the use of the ash as fertilizer.