Energy yield potentials from the anaerobic digestion of common animal manure in Bangladesh

Abstract

This study provides previously unavailable field data relating to the biogas and methane yields from supervised authentic anaerobic digesters using the most common animal manure in Bangladesh: cow dung, poultry litter and town cattle market straw which are found to produce biogas yields of 0.034, 0.030 and 0.142 m3/kg respectively, with methane concentrations of 60% and 62% and 74% respectively and total solids of 19, 23 and 45 respectively. It also reports indications that in unsupervised plant issues with underfeeding, improper water mixing and irregular feeding are very common – all of which can significantly reduce yields. The figures above should thus be treated as maximum, optimum field values. These results provide reliable data for use in scaling up for national energy and investment planning, as they related directly to common scenarios of family smallholdings, common sized poultry farms and town cattle markets in Bangladesh where there is a reliance on combustion of local wood and dung biomass for cooking, creating air pollution, health and environmental degradation issues.