Biogas Production from Rumen, Municipal and Co-Digested Substrates: An Opportunity for Small and Medium Scale Entrepreneurs (SME)

Abstract

Comparative study of anaerobic digestion of Rumen, municipal w a s t e and co-digested feedstock was investigated. 10kg each of rumen, municipal waste and co-digested feedstock each was used in a 30 litres anaerobic digester. The digester was loaded batch wise for 3 0 retention day runs up to 80% volume of the digester nominal volume. The cumulative biogas production was recorded as 181900, 217350 and 180250 ml/g VS-1 respectively. Methane composition of the various biogas was 56.42, 55.81 and 58.820 % untreated biogas samples. The treated s c r u b b e d water produced a burning gas with m e t h a n e composition 84.08,51.54 and 95.518 % respectively for the feedstock. Co-digested s u b s t r a t e d o e s n o t actually have any significant effect on production and composition of the gas produce. Since waste raise a major environmental concern, these simple steps could be exploited by small and m e d i u m scale entrepreneurs (SME), an alternative to convert waste into fuel that c a n be tremendously useful as renewable fuel source especially for domestic and industrial use.