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Learn about biogas
ENERGY IS one of the basic necessities of humans. We need energy in its various forms and various theories have been propounded and experiments conducted for the proper consumption, production and preservation of energy.
With the demand for energy increasing, scientists are making headway in their endeavours to find new sources of energy. The concept of renewable energy has become quite popular in the last two or three decades.
Various methods of generating renewable forms of energy have been introduced in the recent past. One concept that is fast gaining ground is that of the biogas.
Biogas is used as a renewable source of energy, which utilizes available natural resources for its production. Now let us discuss in some details what biogas is.
Biogas can be described as a combination of various gases, usually carbon dioxide and methane. Though both these gases support combustion, methane is sometimes referred to as biogas.
Methane is generated anaerobically (in the absence of oxygen) through the process of fermentation, in which certain micro-organisms of different types act on organic material like manure, mud and solid waste. These methane-producing micro-organism are not just able to live without oxygen, but they can also digest cellulose, which is the main constituent of plant fibre.
These microbes are very responsive to environmental conditions like temperature, acidity and water. Animals which consume plants, like grazing creatures, produce considerable amount of biogas. That is, the microbes present in their digestive systems produce biogas.
Biogas is also produced in swamps and at the bottom of lakes where, under wet conditions, organic matter is generated which decays under anaerobic conditions.
The process
The process of manure digestion takes place in a digester or a tank, which should be capable of sustaining an increasing pressure and producing anaerobic conditions for the bacterial species present in it. For delivering a continuous supply of collected gas, the digesters are constructed close to the manure source.
The digester waste products are mainly composed of carbohydrates, lipids and proteins. Biogas digesters take a form of energy, animal manure, and change it into two products gas and liquid manure.
The conventional application of manure gives only one of the two products: either the manure is burnt directly as a fuel or it is utilized as a fertilizer in fields and gardens. The processing of the cattle or human dung in a biogas digester provides both an improved quality gas and liquid manure.
The mode of production plays an important role in processing many types of organic waste products since it represents a helpful mechanism of converting waste products into different forms of energy, for instance electricity. Biogas aids in reducing the quantity of waste that has to be removed, besides eliminating the disease caused by harmful agents that may be present in the waste material.
The production of biogas is appreciated because the methane gas burns with a clean flame and this greatly reduces environmental hazards. Biogas makes for a great fuel in stoves and furnaces. It can also be used instead of the conventional natural gas, which is produced from fossil fuels.
Biogas is considered a renewable source of energy because its production is reliant on the supply of natural waste products that are generated on a continuous basis. In comparison, the natural gas used in our homes is not a renewable form of energy because natural gas is formed from fossilized remains of animals and plants, which takes millions of years to produce. These resources do not recycle in a timeframe that is useful vis-a-vis the increasing demand of energy.
Various developed countries have been making good use of gas generated from waste water and landfill sites. They use biogas in homes for heating and lighting, cooking food and as fuels in vehicles. Among the Asian countries, China has used the concept of biogas quite effectively and efficiently for increasing the supply of energy.
In China, at the biogas station of the Huian Chemical Plant, biogas technology for making use of biomass energy is used to treat waste water from butanol a higher alcohol. For this they use the technical parameters of pH (the hydrogen ion concentration) of 7 or more, digestion temperature of 55 to 60 degrees and get a biogas generation rate by digesters of 1 ms/ms.
The technique is helpful in treating low to high concentrations of industrial waste. This system of using biomass for biogas production has provided considerable economic and ecological benefits with the chances of recovering the investment in two to three years.
Also in China, an organization is engaged in providing fully functional biogas digester systems to be used in rural homes since fuel prices have reached new heights. These systems contain human waste collectors, animal farm waste collectors, an underground tank and pipes to fire up stoves with gas.
Ways of using biogas
Biogas is used to produce different forms of energy, such as electricity, heat and fuel. The basic conversion and dispensation techniques of biogas are:
By burning the biomass, which generates biogases that can be used in industries for generating heat and electricity with the help of steam turbine generators.
By competently changing solid fuel to gaseous state similar to the town gas production from coal, which was used before the use of natural gas. The generated gas produces heat and electricity utilizing gas engine generators.
Through the formation of carbon-enriched solid fuel and a hydrocarbon rich gas by heating the biomass feedstock anaerobically. For example, the production of charcoal from wood.
The natural creation of gas via biological resources. This is commonly used in farms for producing methane, which is used to generate heat and electricity. Its also used for recycling water and making fertilizers.
According to scientists undertaking research on renewable forms of energy, in due time it would become important for the world to work on the generation of renewable energy. This is so because the demand of energy is increasing throughout the world, while our resources for generating energy are limited.
To be sure, nature always helps us out in its own ways. Biogas is the prime example of this.
The writer
