Mario A. Alejandro Rosato
Born in 1961, since the age of 16 actively involved in renewable energies. Mario is electrical, electronic and environmental engineer, speaks Spanish and Italian (mother languages) , English , French, German and Portuguese. Currently CEO of Sustainable Technologies, a company with headquarter in Barcelona, Spain, and research laboratory in Latisana, Italy. He has won several international awards and has two passions: researching and communicating science to the large public.
Biography
Mario A. Rosato is electric-electronic and environmental engineer, as well as scientific journalist. He built his first home-sized digester in Argentina, when he was aged 16. Son of a University professor and researcher, since his childhood he learnt to employ sophisticated instruments in his favorite playground: his father’s lab. At the age of 25 he obtained a scholarship to specialize in renewable energies in Italy. At 28 he chose to leave the academic research world and devoted to the development of industrial solutions. In 1990 he settled in Italy, in 2000 he moved to Spain. In 2004 he became partner and scientific director of Bioenergia Aragonesa SL. In 2006 he patented the AFADS system, a multitrophic bioreactor for wastewater treatment. In 2009 he founded Sustainable Technologies SL in Barcelona. From 2010 he expanded his company’s activity to Italy, where he became professor in several private professional institutes. Since then he has trained more than hundred biogas plant managers in Italy and Spain. He installed a laboratory for applied research and routine anaerobic digestion tests in the Technologic Park of Pordenone in 2011. The same year he won The Economist’s award to the best entrepreneur idea to tackle the global climate change, based on the production of biohydrogen and the cultivation of bamboo in a circular economy cycle. Some months later, he received the Green Vision Award from the Modus Vivendi magazine in Rome. His industrial solutions, based on original applied research, place him 4th in the worldwide Top Solvers list of Innocentive.com’s. In 2012, during the research project H2Ocean, funded by the European Commission’s 7th Framework Program, he develops a novel type of digester for marine biomass, specially conceived for offshore operation. In 2013 he won two international awards for the conceptual design of a domestic garbage digester, meant for low-income Indian families. Since 2014 he is in charge of the column on bioenergy for agronotizie.it, a specialized e-zine for agronomists and farming professionals. In 2015 he was member of the technical commission in charge of redacting the Italian norm on the biochemical methane potential (BMP) test protocol, being his contribution focused on the error propagation analysis and improving both accuracy and precision.Education
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electric and electronic engineer, University of La Plata
Environmental Engineer, Tech. University of La Plata
Areas of Research / Professional Expertise
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Anaerobic Digestion (biogas / biomethane)
Dark fermentation (biohydrogen)
Liquid biofuels
Solid biomass
Metrology and lab instruments
Design of small wind turbines
Low cost sustainable technologies for developing countries
Technical thermodynamics and rational use of energy
Personal Interests
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Yatching and sustainable marine propulsion
Science divulgation in general
Websites
Books
Articles
A critical review of the VFA/TA (FOS/TAC) method (2017)
Published: Sep 21, 2017 by World biogas associacion (WBA)
Authors: Mario A. Rosato
Subjects:
Agricultural Science, Energy & Clean Technology
The VFA/TA (aka. FOS/TAC) method is promoted by the industry, and by a large part of the academic community, as "the ultimate" method to control a biogas plant. This article shows a real case study that demonstrates that: a) the FOS/TAC is based on a false supposition, hence it cannot give true answers, if not by pure case; b) it provides positive results when everything proceeds correctly, but also when the anaerobic process is collapsed. So, it is of no use to diagnose process disruptions.
Quick restart of a biogas plant and micronutrients cost minimization
Published: Sep 21, 2017 by Bioprocess Control's Biogas Academy
Authors: Mario A. Rosato and Sten Strömberg
Subjects:
Agricultural Science, Energy & Clean Technology
The article shows practically how to restart a biogas plant after collapse caused by monosubstrate feeding and to optimize the dose of micronutrients
Check your biogas plant’s health with AMPTS II Light
Published: Sep 21, 2017 by Biogas Academy by Bioprocess Control
Authors: Mario A. Rosato and Sten Strömberg
Subjects:
Agricultural Science, Energy & Clean Technology, Engineering - Environmental
This practical application note shows how to perform a simple set of tests to check the bacterial activity of anaeobic inoculum
The error propagation in calculating the BMP of silage: tricks to minimize it
Published: Sep 21, 2017 by Biogas Academy Bioprocess Control
Authors:
Subjects:
Chemistry, Energy & Clean Technology, Life Science
The literature of biogas is plagued with papers published by authoritative researchers, that nevertheless contain coarse errors, both procedural and metrological. This application note shows how to avoid some common pitfalls.
Column on bioenergy (in Italian only)
Published: Sep 21, 2017 by Agronotizie
Authors: Mario A. Rosato
Subjects:
Energy & Clean Technology, Environmental Science
List of all articles published by Agronotizie
News
New book on small wind turbines
By: Mario A. Alejandro Rosato
Subjects: Agricultural Science, Energy & Clean Technology, Water Science & Engineering
This practical book deals with the technology of small-power wind turbines as opposed to widely diffused industrial wind turbines and wind farms. It covers the most common wind turbine technologies in the small power segment: horizontal axis both for electrical generation and water pumping, vertical axis of the Darrieus type, and vertical axis of the Savonius type. With each chapter following the same didactic scheme—a theoretical explanation and practical examples showing calculation procedures—it allows anybody with basic technical knowledge to design and build a small wind turbine for any site. A set of simple spreadsheets is available for download, each providing further examples of how to solve specific design problems and allowing the reader to play with changing parameters and see what-if. This simple trial-and-error learning process allows beginners to develop the feeling of the orders of magnitude involved in the design of a small wind power system, its potential advantages on other alternative solutions, and its limitations under some special circumstances.
Videos
Published: Sep 21, 2017
Coupling anaerobic digestion with bamboo cultivation and further industrialization into durable products is an example of circular economy that constitutes a net carbon sink.