THE EFFECT OF BUFFALO DUNG TREATMENT WITH PAUNCH FLUID ON BIOGAS PRODUCTION

Abstract

Anaerobic digestion is a biological process used to convert organic wastes into biogas and a stable bio-fertilizer for agricultural applications as environmentally friendly product. The produced biogas is used as an alternative renewable energy source. The aim of this study was to analyze the influence of paunch fluid (PF) content on biogas and methane yield from buffalo dung as biowastes. A series of laboratory experiments using 2 L biodigesters (i.e., BD1 till BD6) were carried out in batch operation mode. Each biodigester was fed with fixed 750 g of fresh buffalo dung (D) and mixed with 750 ml of PF and distill water (W) with different ratios (i.e., BD1= 50%, BD2= 50%, BD3= 37.5%, BD4= 37.5%, BD5=0% and BD6= 100% of PF). The results showed that the best performance for biogas and methane production was the biodigester BD3 and BD4 with 37.5% of PF, i.e. biogas yield was 205.8 and 224.2 ml g VS-1, respectively, after 40 days of hydraulic retention time (HRT). While the other biodigesters BD1, BD2, BD5 and BD6 with 50, 50, 0 and 100% of PF delivered a biogas yield of 177.3, 133.1, 172.7 and 0 ml g VS-1, respectively. Additionally, methane production showed the similar performance, i.e. digesters BD4, BD3, BD1, BD5, BD2 and BD6 delivered a methane yield of 144.7, 130.3, 120.4, 104.8, 84.2 and 0.0 ml g VS-1, respectively. These results showed that, the highest biogas and methane yield was delivered when buffalo dung was treated with 37.5% of PF. Although, many references showed that, 50% of PF delivered the highest biogas and methane yields. Therefore, the effect of PF concentration on biogas and methane production must be investigated intensively.