Conceptual Design of a System to Facilitate Production of Methane Through Anaerobic Digestion of Organic Material

Abstract

There is a need to develop affordable and effective processes that make use of the anaerobic digestion process in order to produce Methane from different organic materials particularly human sewage and domestic organic waste such as food scraps. Current bio-digester designs have achieved good results, but there are some notable problems in both large-scale and small-scale systems. There is a need for further research and development in order to overcome these problems and thereby contribute to meeting the energy needs of both rural and urban communities. This work begins by identifying the factors that influence methane production during AD. This was achieved from relevant literature. The design objectives, as well as engineering constraints that are relevant to DBDs, were identified. A House of quality matrix is used to analyze the relationships between the design parameter and the engineering specifications. These factors were used as guidelines to create design concepts. The design concepts are sketched and modeled using parametric CAD software (Solidworks). From these concepts, the best design is selected using the Pugh method and a scoring matrix,1.