Performance Improvement Of Biogas Plant Based On Feed Management And Design Modifications

Abstract

newline The viability of biogas technology can be improved by implementing it from a holistic approach. Components of biogas technology can be categorized into three groups as preprocessing, main digestion and post-processing. In the preprocessing phase, it is important to look into locally available feeds which contain high starch value and its preprocessing to improve the performance of anaerobic process. The improved design of pre-processor helps in adopting various types of feeds available resulting into solid waste management. The performance of anaerobic process in the main digester is governed by the design of digester, standard operating practices and maintenance processes. The appropriate consideration and implementation of these parameters help in improving the gas production rate and fault tolerance. In the post-processing phase, biogas and biogas manure needs to be processed effectively for maximizing economic benefits. These three processes of biogas technology are looked through holistic approach to improve the collective performance and acceptability of plant. The performance analysis of biogas digester is numerically obtained using Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) models of plant modeled using COMSOL Multiphysics software. The key factor of biogas plant is proper mixing of the sludge in the digester. The quality of mixing is numerically evaluated based on the velocity profile in the digester. Focus of most of the earlier studies was to improve velocity pattern by using impeller.