Biogas Micro-Production from Human Organic Waste—A Research Proposal

Abstract

Organic waste (OW) management tackles the problem of sanitation and hygiene in developing countries and humanitarian camps where unmanaged waste often causes severe health problems and premature death. OW still has a usable energy content, allowing biogas production, potentially contributing to satisfy the local needs, e.g., cooking, lighting and heating. Digesters are the devices converting OW into biogas under anaerobic conditions. They are simple and effective solutions for the OW management in rural areas, humanitarian camps and remote developing regions, producing energy and fertilizers for local farming as residual. This paper describes the design and lab-test of a domestic OW management system integrating a waterless toilet with a small-scale digester producing safe biogas for local micro-consumption. Starting from people's needs and an extensive review of the current state-of-art technology, the proposed system's key innovation and strength is the combination of effectiveness and a very simple construction, set up and use, fitting with the rural conditions and raw materials available within the emerging countries. A small-scale prototype is assembled and lab-tested assessing the quantity-i.e., productivity-and quality-i.e., composition and methane content-of the produced biogas. The measured productivity in terms of specific biogas production (SBP) is of about 0.15 m 3 /kg SV and a methane content of about 74% in mass match the energy needs of domestic users, encouraging the spread of such systems in developing regions and rural areas.

Sustainable Italian Cities: The Added Value of Biomethane from Organic Waste

“…Biomethane supports the decarbonization of the transport system, involving both private and public actors [19,20]. The integration of several types of RESs can help to achieve sustainability [21], and provides opportunities for additional sources of income [22,23].…”

Bioenergy production from bacteria (Methanogens)

“…The production of Biogas depends on the mass of Organic solids and their biological activity in anaerobic reactors 5 . Biogas is used in many fields, such as its use in large reactors as fuel for heaters, use in electricity generation, in internal combustion engines, and powering air blowers 6 .…”

People’s perceptions on the use of human excreta for biogas generation in Ghana

“…Sewage sludge contains mostly excreta and water in combination with other substances (Tilley et al 2014). Furthermore, humans generate about 0.5-1.5 kg excreta per day (Regattieri et al 2018), thus requires that wastewater is well managed to avoid or reduce environmental pollution to the barest minimum. In Ghana, offsite and on-site excreta management options such as sewerage system, septic tank systems, ventilated improved pit (VIP) latrine systems and open defecation are the predominant waste management practices used, but these are either energy intensive or environmentally unfriendly.…”