SYNTHESIS OF BIOGAS – A REVIEW

Abstract

Energy is universally recognized as one of the most important inputs for economic growth and human development. Every day, in our walks of life we come across food, vegetable wastes and other organic wastes that have huge potential to uplift the society in a better way, when these are transformed into useful bioenergy. To produce bioenergy from biomass one of the better options is to utilize these potential wastes to transform it into biogas. Today, the entire world is looking for different alternative fuels. Biogas is one of the good alternative fuel, energy rich and is well suited as domestic fuel, for heating purposes and power generation. The sources available for the production of biogas are fruit, vegetable wastes and agricultural residues. Biogas from such solid wastes primarily constitutes of methane, carbon dioxide and other trace gases. It is a clean fuel with a calorific value between 5000 to 5500 kcal/kg. There are two methods available for the production of biogas from organic wastes. They are dry processes and the wet processes. The dry processes include combustion and pyrolysis, whereas the wet processes include anaerobic digestion, gasification and fermentation. Key words: Biogas, Batch process, Biomass, Wet process, Anaerobic digestion