IMPROVING BIOGAS PRODUCTION FROM ORGANIC AND AGRICULTURAL WASTES USING WASTEWATER AND STARTER SLURRY

Anaerobic digestion is a well-known technique for waste management which could have constituted health hazard as well as environmental pollution. To enhance the biogas production, Starter Digestate (SD) by 5% of digester volume (T_2) and Agricultural Wastewater (AW) with SD (T_3) were performed on raw materials of: Cattle Dung (CD), Poultry Droppings (PD), Sugar beet Leaves (SL) and Water Hyacinth (WH) compared with blank test (T_1) (Tap water) under different fermentation mixtures in order to study their effects on biogas and methane production, total nitrogen and pH. Results indicated that using agricultural wastewater and starter digestate 5% (T_3) acheived the highest biogas production, methane percentage and total nitrogen comparing with the other treatments. With respect to fermentation mixtures, mixture of 50% SL + 50% WH (B) gave the highest methane percentage (77%), while mixture of 50% PD + 25 % SL + 25% WH (D) produced high concentration of N (5.3%) as a rich fertilizer with an average biogas production (778 mL/day) through fermentation period of 24 days.