Influence of Inoculum and Substrate Concentration on Anaerobic Digestion of Ocimum Sanctum (Holy Basil)

Abstract

“Anaerobic digestion is the constrained degradation of usual organic waste in the oxygen deficient environment and the existence of anaerobic microorganisms. Anaerobic digestion is accomplished by microbial diversity. “Substrate loading rate is a measure of biological conversion capacity of anaerobic system and has significant influence on the process performance. Henceforth in the current work, the outcome of different concentrations of substrate to inoculum (0.3, 0.6 and 0.9) on anaerobic digestion of Holy Basil (Ocimum sanctum) used as substrate was explored in batch reactors for 45 days along with heterogenous cowdung as Inoculum. Temperature and biogas were noted daily. “The Volatile Solids (VS), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Total Kjeldhal Nitrogen (TKN) and Phosphorous were analyzed at an interval of 5 days. Though the degradation rates of various parameters showed a higher efficiency at 0.3 inoculum to “substrate concentration, the biogas generation was impending to be maximum at 0.6 among the various digesters.