Parametric studies on biogas production through anaerobic digestion

Abstract

Energy and environment are rated as the major concerns of the present mankind. Due to newlinethe unethical consumption of fossil fuels, the environment is losing its self-cleaning newlinecapability instigating uncontrolled pollution. Need of the hour is the development of newlinedevices which can prevent environmental pollution and offer sustainable energy solutions. newlineUse of renewable energy sources seems to be the sole immediate remedy, which can be newlineadopted to reverse the degradation of our environment. Biomass is the most promising newlinerenewable energy sources which have a potential to fix the environmental pollution newlineproblem and substitute most of the energy applications. newlineMany renewable technologies are currently available for producing the energy from the newlinebiomass sources such as gasification, anaerobic digestion, ethanol fermentation, pyrolysis, newlinetransesterification, etc. Anaerobic digestion technology is highly attractive in this regard newlineand is widely employed in treating the biomass waste. Anaerobic digestion provides an newlinearray of positive environmental benefits such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions, newlinereplacing mineral fertilizers, producing renewable energy and treating waste. However, newlinepitfalls in anaerobic digestion such as process instability due to environmental condition newlineand regional shortages of feedstock have limited the full exploitation of the anaerobic newlinedigestion process. newlineThe major aim of this work is to identify the availability of local feedstock (organic newlinewaste), and to study their characteristics, apart from using them in suitable anaerobic newlinedigesters. Initially, food waste available at NIT Calicut was chosen and the biogas newlineproduction potential was evaluated through laboratory scale batch anaerobic reactors. The newlineprocess parameters such as solid concentration, pH and temperature were analyzed newlineexperimentally in the laboratory for biogas production.