Anaerobic digestion of buffalo dung, sheep waste and poultry litter for biogas production.

Abstract

A study was conducted at the Machinery Demonstration Unit Farm, Agricultural Engineering Research, AMRI Division, Faisalabad, Pakistan during 2004-2008. Three treatments of feeding materials i.e. buffalo dung (BD), buffalo dung plus poultry litter (BD+PL) and buffalo dung plus sheep waste (BD+SW) at levels of 15, 30 and 40 kg per day were used. The analysis of variance showed that feeding material and its levels significantly affected the slurry temperature, gas production and pH value. The highest gas production was obtained from BD+PL (0.92 m 3 /day), BD (0.82 m 3 /day) and BD+SW (0.79 m 3 /day) when this material was used @ 40 kg per day. The average slurry temperature within plant remained between 27 to 31°C approximately, 5-7°C below the atmospheric temperature. The average pH values for treatments BD, BD+PL and BD+SW were found as 6.6, 6.5 and 6.8, respectively.