Biogas production from kitchen waste acquired from COMSATS University Islamabad, Abbottabad campus (a pilot study)

Abstract

To reduce human dependence on the mitigation of fossil fuels and climate change require switching to a fully renewable energy system with low or nil associated emission of greenhouse gases. The present study was conducted in CIIT Abbottabad to determine the amount of kitchen waste (K.w) generation, and its subsequent potential for biogas production during anaerobic digestion. Two bio-reactors were operated to estimate the biogas production for cooked and un-cooked (K.w). The (K.w) was quantified into cooked and un-cooked (K.w) category, and for 30 days batch bioreactor was operated to assess the biogas production. The quantity of cooked and un-cooked (K.w) generation was 6~18, and 8~30 kg per day via Salman Firdous, and 8~22, and 12~27 kg per day by Azeem Shehzad cafeteria. Our finding depicted that biogas production was measured higher (40 times) in cooked than un-cooked (K.w). It was also noticed that biogas production was done in three phases i.e. lag, log and steady phase. The higher biogas production is due to the effect of thermal pretreatment during cooking that causes the softening of various organic substrates like hemicelluloses, celluloses, fats and proteins. It acted like a pretreatment and aided in the microbial action which resulted in very high biogas yields from cooked (K.w). Our outcomes were significant to generate renewable energy from (K.w) at institutes level to overcome the energy shortcoming in less developing countries like Pakistan.