Anaerobic digestion of household organic waste to produce biogas

Abstract

Biogas may be readily obtained by the anaerobic digestion of organic waste. If communities and towns could harness the energy which is contained in the organic waste which they presently dispose of in landfills or compost, this fuel could supplement or completely satisfy their heat energy requirements. Biogas production from household organic waste is rare because existing digesters are not suitable for small-scale applications. This paper describes a digester design which can make this waste to energy conversion process possible. The proposed digester is inexpensive to construct and maintain, simple to operate and highly efficient. This is made possible by an integration of modern industrial digestion processes, and low-technology digestion concepts as seen in rural Chinese and Indian digesters.