KVASU goes places with biogas

Gas generated at unit can be transported in a specially made balloon

The school of bio-energy and farm waste management of Kerala Veterinary and Animal Sciences University (KVASU) has developed a biogas plant which, it claims, is more efficient in converting kitchen waste into biogas.

The restricted flow anaerobic baffled reactor biogas plant is modelled on cow’s digestive system.

“The plant has a digester with a capacity of 3,000 litres, a balloon gas holder, moisture remover, and carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulphide removers,” John Abraham, Assistant Professor at the school, said.

“The first chamber of the digester unit will be filled with stomach content (rumen) of cattle collected from abattoirs and the second chamber will be filled with cow dung for producing microbes. Later, kitchen waste can be fed into the digester as feedstock for the microbes and it starts to produce biogas anaerobically,” Dr. Abraham, who mentored the project, said.

He said a major advantage of the unit was that biogas generated at the unit could be transported in a specially made balloon.

Vertical baffles

Moreover, commercial type of burner could be used with it by the help of a biogas compressor.

The digester has vertical baffles which restrict the flow of kitchen waste, which aids multiplication of microbes. “In traditional biogas plants, the hydraulic retention time or the time for completing digestion of the feeding material is high. But the retention time in the new plant is low as it has two chambers,” Dr. Abraham said. Around 100 litres of kitchen waste could be fed daily into the plant that produces 2 cubic metres of biogas a day. The project was completed in six months expending ₹1.50 lakh.