Manufacture of reactor for producing biogas from food waste and cattle manure

Abstract

The current study aims to design and manufacture a simple biogas unit suitable for small farmers'' families in the remote areas of Egypt, to produce biogas from leftover food and kitchen waste; the hydraulic digester model was selected as a simple digester for biogas units. The biogas unit was fabricated from simple material with capacity of 1m3. The results showed the ambient temperature was ranged from 32 C to 39 C, digester temperature was ranged from 30 C to 35 C, pH was ranged from 7 to 7.3 and C:N ratio was ranged from 15~28:1, That’s indicates to the fermentation conditions was suitable for completing the fermentation process and biogas production. The total solid concentration (TSC) and fermentation time have effect on biogas yield and CH4 content, where the biogas yield was increased with the increasing of TSC. The highest biogas yield ever was obtained under TSC 14% in the week number 11, and the biogas yield has limited increasing under the same TSC and different fermentation time. The designed unit was succeeded to produce economic biogas with CH4 content 58% and 62% from leftover food and kitchen waste mixed with caw manures and the highest weekly biogas yield was 2.75 m3 under TSC 14% by mean 0.4 m3per day, it could be covering the biogas needs for 2 people, Thus, this unit could be recommended for farmers families in the remote areas as a simple biogas technology to produce biogas from their kitchen wastes