Abstract
Anaerobic digestion is an efficient and renewable energy technology that can produce biogas from a variety of biomasses such as animal manure, food waste and plant residues. In developing countries this technology is widely used for the production of biogas using local biomasses, but there is little information about the value of these biomasses for energy production. This study was therefore carried out with the objective of estimating the biogas production potential of typical Vietnamese biomasses such as animal manure, slaughterhouse waste and plant residues, and developing a model that relates methane (CH4) production to the chemical characteristics of the biomass. The biochemical methane potential (BMP) and biomass characteristics were measured. Results showed that piglet manure produced the highest CH4 yield of 443 normal litter (NL) CH4 kg−1 volatile solids (VS) compared to 222 from cows, 177 from sows, 172 from rabbits, 169 from goats and 153 from buffaloes. Methane production from duckweed (Spirodela polyrrhiza) was higher than from lawn grass and water spinach at 340, 220, and 110.6 NL CH4 kg−1 VS, respectively. The BMP experiment also demonstrated that the CH4 production was inhibited with chicken manure, slaughterhouse waste, cassava residue and shoe-making waste. Statistical analysis showed that lipid and lignin are the most significant predictors of BMP. The model was developed from knowledge that the BMP was related to biomass content of lipid, lignin and protein from manure and plant residues as a percentage of VS with coefficient of determination (R-square) at 0.95. This model was applied to calculate the CH4 yield for a household with 17 fattening pigs in the highlands and lowlands of northern Vietnam.
Highlights
The rapid industrialisation and economic progress in Vietnam in the last decade has led to a significant increase in energy consumption
These results show that the developed matter (DM) contents of solid manures in Vietnam are not much different from manures collected in industrial countries (Sommer et al, 2001; Møller et al, 2004)
This study has shown that lignin concentrations in ruminant manures from buffaloes, cows, sheep and goats were higher than in piglet or chicken manure, the lignin concentration in sow manure was quite high at 16.2% since the main feed ingredient for sows in Vietnam is plant residues
Summary
The rapid industrialisation and economic progress in Vietnam in the last decade has led to a significant increase in energy consumption. From 2000 to 2008, natural gas demand increased at a rate of 20.5% per year (Institute of Energy, 2010) and Vietnam is predicted to increasingly become reliant on the import of fossil fuels. It is recognised that there is a large amount of unused biomass available for Biogas technology is viewed as a method for solving environmental problems, and for contributing to energy production and resolving economic and social issues (Cu et al, 2012). Biogas production is normally unstable and out of control in Vietnam due to a lack of knowledge about management of biogas digesters and the usefulness of local feed for biogas production. It is important to provide more information about the biogas production potential of local biomasses.
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