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WASTE MANAGEMENT PLANT

Biogas technology is about capturing the gas that results from the anaerobic fermentation of biomass. The plant uses the natural processes of anaerobic digestion to produce biogas to produce biogas from animal waste or night soil. Biogas is a mixture of gas produced by methanogenic bacteria while acting upon biodegradable materials in an anaerobic condition.
            Biogas is a flammable gas produced by microbes when organic materials are fermented in a certain range of temperature and moisture content. Biogas is about 20% lighter than air and has ignition temperature in the range of 6500 to 7500 C. It is odourless and colourless gas that burns with clear blue flame similar to that of LPG gas. Its calorific value is 20Mega Joules (MJ) per M3 and burns with 60% efficiency in a conventional biogas stove.
Naturally occurring bacteria (methanogenic bacteria) produce biogas during digestion or fermentation of organic matter in the absence of oxygen (anaerobic process). The gas produced consists mainly of methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2). There are also traces of water vapour, hydrogen, nitrogen and hydrogen sulphide. This mixture of gases is combustible if the methane content is more than 50%. Biogas from animal dung contains approximately 60% methane.

The production of biogas occurs in two stages:

* Bacteria breakdown complex organic materials into short chain, simple organic acids.
• * Organic materials and CO2 are either oxidized or reduced to CH4 by methanogenic micro organism.

In this way methane is formed from fermentation of animal wastes or any cellulose organic materials. For fermentation to take place, several conditions such as absence of air, suitable temperature, necessary nutrients, water contents and maintaining a suitable pH balance should be met.