Biogas Generation from Vegetable Waste and Horse Dung through Improvised Anaerobic Digester

Abstract

Biogas significantly reduces the environment's vast supply of animal manure and food waste, which causes nitrogen and water pollution. Biogas is a sustainable fuel created when microorganisms decompose organic matter, such as food or animal waste, without oxygen, which is known as anaerobic digestion. This study considered vegetable waste (VW) and horse dung as substrates in producing biogas. The study aims to generate biogas in 34 kg of mixed vegetable waste and horse dung into two designs of experiments with different proportions and study how these proportions affect the amount of biogas produced within the period of 10 and 13 days. This study employed an experimental research design wherein data were collected through surveys, timely observations, and primarily through experiments. After ten days, the first experiment produced yellow with a little blue, while the second experiment produced blue with a little yellow. Likewise, after 13 days, the mixed waste consisting of 30% each of VW and Horse manure was fed into the digester (experiment 1) and lasted 3.22 minutes. In contrast, the mixed waste, consisting of 20% VW and 40% Horse dung, was fed into the digester (experiment 2) for 7.22 minutes. Furthermore, both experiments produced blue with a little bit of yellow. On water temperature, experiments 1 and 2 were able to boil 200 ml of water from 3°C to 5.20°C and 6.10°C, respectively. These results signify the effectiveness and efficiency of the chosen substrate in producing biogas. It is recommended that future research in the same field shall consider economy and comparison between different substrates. Also, to measure biogas's heat capacity and design a digester with catalyst and substrate mixer.