Comparative Analysis of Biogas Production from Agricultural Wastes

Abstract

Wastes from Agriculture have served and will continue to serve as a remarkable energy source for rural and urban inhabitants due to their accessibility and affordability. It can also provide bioenergy and biomaterial products that have contributed immensely to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and their associated global warming. In this research, onion leaves and cow dung were poured into two 25-litre digesters in equal proportions for experimental analysis. The result revealed that cow dung has a high cumulative biogas production of 13,422 ml/week in 90 days of retention time compared to onion leaves, demonstrating the efficiency of our research. The biogas observed a high calorific value of 9.41kcal/m³ from cow dung with 0% carbon monoxide and 10.97% methane content. Onion leaves obtained a pH value of 6.97 before anaerobic digestion at 30^oC, while cow dung was measured to be 6.61 at a temperature of 29^oC. All these parameters show that cow dung and onion leaves are suitable substrates for biogas production. However, in this regard, cow dung has outstanding potential and merit in methane production, which is explosive over onion leaves to replace kerosene and coal for domestic application.