Anaerobic digestion

Poor waste management practices have led to significant environmental pollution, with methods like landfilling, burning, and open dumping, contributing to air pollution and public health hazards. Over time, innovative approaches have been developed to tackle these issues. One such approach is anaerobic digestion, which relies on microbial degradation of organic waste material in the absence of oxygen. The feasibility of generating biogas from combining cow dung and tiger nut waste through anaerobic digestion was investigated. The materials were mixed in a 5:1 ratio with distilled water, and the pH was adjusted from 4.7 to 6.7 using NaOH. Biogas collection was conducted using a water displacement method with a graduated cylinder. The experiment spanned six days, during which the initial properties of the feed, including volatile solids (14.31%), total solids (14.57%), water content (85.43%), pH (6.7), ash content (0.26%), nitrogen (8.64%), potassium (298 mg/kg), phosphorus (76.28 mg/kg), and ammonium (0.08 mg/kg)
were recorded. Biogas volume changes were monitored and recorded daily. The results showed the progressive increase in the volume of biogas produced until the last day of retention. The results demonstrated that anaerobic digestion is an effective method for biogas production, providing a potential solution for improving waste management practices and reducing environmental pollution.