EFFECT OF WITH/WITHOUT AGITATIONOF AGRICULTURAL WASTE ON BIOGAS PRODUCTION FROM ANAEROBIC CO-DIGESTION-A SMALL SCALE

Abstract

The growing worldwide concerns over environment, health and monetary aspects have triggered a search for efficient and economic renewable sources of energy production. Agricultural sector holds the potential for development of one of the major source of renewable energy such as biogas. In this study, CSTR-small scale fermentation (200 L stainless steel) was studied to observe the effect of stirring for natural water, cow dung, rice straw and water hyacinth ratio (2:1:1:1), which there are suitable of C: N ratio at 31.1: 1on the biogas and methane production at ambient temperature (31°C), 6.7-7.2 and 6.7-7.8 of pH for with/without stirring digester, respectively, for 52 days. The result showed that the biogas production increased progressively with stirring digester. The maximum biogas production and methane concentration was 98.56 L/days and 64.07% was obtained at stirring digester. This gave an increase of 7.56 over without stirring digester. Thus, agitation of digester can be used effectively as an operating strategy to optimize biogas production.