Methane Biogas Production from Mixing of Algae and Municipal Solid Waste by Anaerobic Digestion

Abstract

The present study was designed to investigate the capability of algae biomass to increase methane biogas production from anaerobic digestion of municipal solid waste. Batch anaerobic digester was used for digesting the mixture of algae and organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW). A variety condition of algae to organic fraction municipal solid waste mixing ratio, pH, temperature, and total solid are studied for a period of 12 days. It was observed that maximum methane biogas production was found to be 946.0012 mL/gm v.s at optimum condition of mixing ratio of algae to OFMSW were, 1:2, temperature, total solid and pH of 32 oC, 8 % and 7.5 respectively. Multiple correlation methodology optimized the methane production with a correlation coefficient (R2) to be 0.925. The first order kinetic model was used to assess the dynamics of the biodegradation process. The obtained negative value of (k = - 0.2543), indicates that the solid waste biodegradation was quick with a correlation coefficient (R2) of 0.9906. The Gompertz model was used to adequately describe the experimental cumulative methane biogas production from lab scale anaerobic digesters. The theoretical methane biogas yield was found to be 1016.76 mL/gm v.s which is very close to experimental value 946.0012 mL/gm v.s. with high correlation coefficient R2 of 0.998.