Energy Conversion of Organic Wastes Through Portable Biogas Plants

Management of organic waste is one among the most pressing environmental issues in most urban and semi-urban areas of the developing world. Unscientific land filling of municipal solid wastes is one of the important causes for environmental degradation and in a big way contribute to global warming. Households constitute the most basic unit in urban energy consumption and waste generation. Under this scenario, conversion of domestic organic waste into a green fuel, using biogas technology has a huge scope for mitigation of Green House Gas emissions. Like the conventional biogas plants, the portable biogas plants were not so far studied and evaluated extensively. Considering the high relevance of the portable domestic biogas plants, four types of portable biogas plants viz. Floating gas holder type without water seal, Floating gas holder type with water seal, Fixed gas holder type and KAU Portable split biogas plant were evaluated in the present study. The KAU Portable split biogas plant, exhibited superior performance with the other biogas plants used in the study. The kitchen waste had a biogas production potential of 58 L/L and 989.05 L/kgTS of organic wastes.