Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

EVALUATION OF SUGARCANE TRASH’S BIOGAS ON EFFECT WITH INOCULUM TO SUBSTRATE RATIO (ISR) IN A BATCH DIGESTER

Sreelal G. Pandian and Jayanthi Ramasamy

Abstract

Sugarcane is one of the major crops cultivated in India. A large quantity of trash is generated in its harvest which soon after gets burnt in open field to plain the land for next cultivation, thus causing local atmospheric pollution. Rapid degradation of sugarcane trash could be ensured with anaerobic digestion process that guarantee, sugarcane trash reduction, land fertility in the form of nutrient-rich digestate and the energy of the trash is utilized in the form of biogas. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the biogas outcome from the feed consisting of substrate sugarcane trash and pre-digested dairy manure inoculums under different inoculums/substrate ratios (ISR’s). This study set ISR values (0.25, 0.5, 0.75 & 1.0 based on VS) and the digestion process was carried out under mesophilic conditions for 30 days under a batch feed anaerobic digestion mode. Results showed that the reactor R4 (ISR of 1.0 based on VS), significantly achieved high production of biogas (115.9 mL/g) and better lignocellulose degradation. However, the highest methane concentration (55%) was observed in the biogas constituent produced in the reactor R2 (ISR of 0.5 based on VS). Hence, ISR values greatly affect biogas properties of sugarcane trash that undergo batch fed anaerobic digestion process.