Impact of Micronutrients on Bioenergy Production with Addition of Animal Dung—A Pilot-Scale Study

Abstract

Day by day energy issues are concentrating focus of the world’s most of the nations due to limited production in crude oil [1, 2]. Bioenergy in the form of biogas is a suitable option for fulfilling this energy crises in rural areas because of the easy availability of raw substrates [3]. The focus of the current experimental study is to access in the generation of biogas and improve its production by adding some micronutrients along with its combination. Floating drum digester which has fixed in brick masonry chamber having a size of 2 m3 in volume was used for the study. 20 kg cow dung along with 20 lit of water was mixed and filled into the reactor on daily basis, furthermore, addition of ferric chloride (FeCl3), cobalt chloride (CoCl2) and nickel chloride (NiCl2) with doses of 10 mg/lit, 1 mg/lit, 1 mg/lit, respectively, added up to specific retention time. Daily gas generation in digester was measured with floating drum displacement. The result revealed that average gas production is 0.637 m3/kg VS without micronutrient, 0.79 m3/kg VS with adding ferric chloride, 0.781 m3/kg VS with combination of cobalt chloride and nickel chloride and 0.874 m3/kg (VS added) with a combination of ferric chloride, cobalt chloride, and nickel chloride.