Effect of Pretreatment of Traditional Chinese Medicine Residue on the Biogas Productivity

Abstract

The object of this study is to open the new ways of exploitation and utilization of traditional Chinese medicine residue (TCMR) as new energy material to produce biogas through indoor simulation tests. The experiment is carried out to study the effect of physical pretreatment by crusher on the biogas productivity of TCMR under medium temperature condition (35°C). TCMR is used as signal fermentation material without foreign elements which is 5% and cow dung is 10% for inoculum. The batch anaerobic digestion technology and the drainage collection biogas method are used. The results show that there is similar total biogas yield between the smashed TCMR and the unsmashed TCMR, of which the former is 9.35 L and the later is 9.28 L during 51 days fermentation. The biogas yield of smashed TCMR is higher than that of TCMR during fermentation starting period, and lower at the later stage. The results suggest that TCMR could be regarded as biogas fermentation material, and should not be smashed in order to economize the production cost.