Peering into a Simplified Digestor for Households: Performance, Cost and Carbon-Neutral Niche

oleh: Xiaoqin He, Sayed Mohammad Nasiruddin, Xiaoqin Zhou, Zifu Li, Heinz-Peter Mang, Roman Ryndin, Humayun Kabir, Sayed Mohammad Nazim Uddin

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: MDPI AG 2023-12-01

Deskripsi

In this study, a black-shading cylindrical water tank made of high-density polyethylene was locally manufactured as a household digestor for treating cow manure in Bangladesh. Effluent slurry instead of water was reused for manure dilution under manure-to-slurry ratios of 1:2 and 1:1, to assess this small prototype’s production efficiency and feasibility. The specific biogas production at both ratios matched well, by 0.12 m<sup>3</sup>/kg VS and 0.14 m<sup>3</sup>/kg VS, respectively, while the former slurry dilution operation outperformed in daily and accumulative biogas production by 16% and 57%, correspondingly, referring to 0.49 Nm<sup>3</sup>/d on average and 8.55 Nm<sup>3</sup> in total, potentially meeting a 2 h household cooking energy requirement. From a nationwide viewpoint, slurry dilution was proven to be a great initiative to conserve water amounting to 50,286,751 m<sup>3</sup> for 114,810 households of 6 person-equivalents annually, while cutting chemical costs by USD 32,720,684/yr and trimming annual greenhouse gas emission by 1.8 million tons of CO<sub>2</sub>e. This study revealed that a small prototype digestor could be an alternative energy source for cost-effective and eco-friendly household applications.