3.3. Variations in digestate processing and handling
The LCIA results for eight pathways with changes in the digestate processing and handling, in particular the impacts associated with digestate processing and handling (unit process IV) in Fig. 1, are shown in Table 4. Large-scale biogas plants often produce more digestate than could be disposed off in the vicinity of the biogas plant as fertilizer. The digestate contains active fertilizer ingredients of triple superphosphate (P2O5), potassium sulfate (K2O) and ammonium nitrate (NH4eN) fertilizers; therefore it can substitute ingredients in chemical fertilizers.