[Digestion] Renewable Energy World biogas article

Anand Karve adkarve at gmail.com
Fri Jan 7 21:47:03 CST 2011


Dear Randy,
I give below information about a small biogas plant developed by us. You can
contact me personally if you want commercial information.
Yours
A.D.Karve


*ARTI biogas technology*



*Background*

·         The organisms that produce biogas reside in the intestines of
animals. They exit from the animal body along with dung.

·         The traditional biogas plants use dung as feedstock. 1 kg dung
produces about 20 to 30 litres biogas after a fermentation period of about a
month.

·         ARTI scientists argued that since these organisms lived in the
intestines, they ate what the animals ate.

·         Experiments with human food showed that 1 kg (dry weight) of human
food yielded 600 to 800 litres biogas within a fermentation period of just
24 hours.

·         ARTI biogas system, based on human food waste, is about 600 to 800
times as efficient as the dung based biogas plant.



*Compact biogas plant by ARTI*

·         Because of lower feedstock requirement, and because it is consumed
rapidly, ARTI biogas plant is small.  A 1000 litre digester is sufficient
for a family.

·         Small size of the plant allows it to be accommodated in any
available space, even on the terrace of a house.

·         Fabricated from locally available plastic water tanks, it is
installed in just a couple of hours. It can even be moved around.

·         Food waste is plentifully available in urban areas from
restaurants, canteens, vegetable markets, fruit juice vendors, flour mills,
oil mills, etc.

·         Therefore, technology is suitable for urban areas. Almost 5000
plants of this type have so far been installed in India and abroad.



*Special features of ARTI biogas plant*

·         Ideal technology for disposal of wet garbage. A 1000 litre plant
accepts daily about 2 kg wet garbage.**

·         In nature, the methanogens get their food masticated by animals.
Therefore, food waste must be pulped before introducing it into the biogas
plant. **

·         About 10 litres water is needed daily as a carrier of the
feedstock. It generates daily 10 litres effluent. **

·         Because food waste gets completely converted into biogas, the
effluent is watery. It can be recycled or used for watering plants.**

·         In the case of industrial canteens, hostels, resorts and housing
colonies, the design and size of biogas plants depend on the amount and type
of waste and the available space.**

* *

*A rural biogas plant using green leaves as feedstock*

·         Experiments with green leaves showed that 10 kg pulped green
leaves produced 800 to 1000 litres biogas.  **

·         However, midribs, veins and petioles accumulate as undigested
debris inside the digester and ultimately choke the system.**

·         A prototype has been developed from which the accumulated debris
can easily be removed without stopping biogas production. **

·         Such a plant can be introduced into rural areas, as growing a
leafy crop or plucking leaves from existing vegetation is possible. **

* *

*A method for green leaf production*

·         50 to 100 sq.m.plot surounded by a skirting of transparent plastic
film is planted with a high yielding multicut fodder species. **

·         Effluent and leaf debris from the biogas plant provide nutrients
to this plot. Daily water requirement is between 5 to 8 litres per sq.m. **

·         1 or 2 sq.m.area is harvested daily. Leafy waste from crops like
cabbage, carrot, radish, and weeds from the field are also acceptable.**



*Purification of biogas*

·         Biogas contains volumetrically about 40% carbon dioxide and 60%
methane.

·         Therefore biogas has a calorific value of only about 4000 kcal/kg
as against about 11000 kcal/kg of pure methane.

·         Storing biogas in a moving drum floating over water removes carbon
dioxide from biogas.

·         95% pure methane is obtained after 3 days.



*Biogas as fuel in internal combustion engine*

·         Biogas can replace 100% petrol or kerosene and 80% of diesel.

·         It is quite possible to use biogas in unpurified state in internal
combustion engines.

·         Using it in stationary engines for pumping water or for generating
electricity causes no problems.

·         Using it as vehicular fuel is difficult, because it involves
compression of biogas and filling it into cylinders.


On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 3:48 PM, Randy Mott <randymott at ceeres.eu> wrote:

>  Can you send me info on small digesters? I have numerous friends asking
> me who are building new homes or – in one case- a small group of homes.
>
>
>
> Randy Mott
>
> CEERES
>
> Warsaw
>
>
>
> *From:* digestion-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org [mailto:
> digestion-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] *On Behalf Of *Warren Weisman
> *Sent:* Wednesday, January 05, 2011 1:24 AM
> *To:* david at h4c.org; For Discussion of Anaerobic Digestion
> *Subject:* [Digestion] Renewable Energy World biogas article
>
>
>
>
> Group all,
>
> Here's a article I wrote on the www.renewableenergyworld.com website.
> Supposedly it's one of the biggest on the internet, but a good introduction
> and overview of biogas---no, I don't get extra money for everyone that
> visits the site.
>
>
> http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2011/01/gas-from-the-past-biogas-101
>
> Just a reminder as we focus on the technical aspects of anaerobic digestion
> there's still a lot of outreach to do to make biogas more widely understood
> and adopted.
>
> Warren Weisman
> Owner, HESTIA Home Biogas
> Eugene, OR USA
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Digestion mailing list
>
> to Send a Message to the list, use the email address
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> to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page
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>
> for more information about digestion, see
> Beginner's Guide to Biogas
> http://www.adelaide.edu.au/biogas/
> and the Biogas Wiki http://biogas.wikispaces.com/
>
>
>


-- 
***
Dr. A.D. Karve
President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI)

*Please change my email address in your records to: adkarve at gmail.com *
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