title: A novel fed-batch digestion system for biomethanation of plant biomasses.
abstract: Plant biomasses, which in the absence of adequate pretreatment pose serious operational problems in biogas production using conventional domestic flow-through digesters, can be successfully digested in a novel fedbatch digestion system that produces a steady rate of biogas. Basically, the system is a batch digestion operated with a regular input of a calculated amount of feed based on first order decay kinetics in order to maintain a regular biogas production rate. For nearly three years the system was tested in a laboratory-scale fed-batch digester (10 l) using dried water hyacinth as feed providing the desired biogas production rate. A field-scale domestic digester of masonry construction with a working volume of 10 m3 was designed and tested for about 9 months by feeding a mixture of dried water hyacinth or banana stem along with sugarcane press mud, yielding an average biogas production of 90-100% of the expected rate calculated on the basis of the feed rate.
authors.affiliation: Biochemistry Division, Regional Research Laboratory, Jorhat-785006, Assam, India.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sharma
authors.forename: B G
authors.initials: BG
authors.lastname: Unni
authors.forename: H D
authors.initials: HD
authors.lastname: Singh