Use of Pine Needles as Substrate for Biogas Production

Abstract

This paper describes the results of an experimental investigation taken up to check the suitability and potential of the pine needles as substrate in biogas production under batch digester. There are various lignocellulosic biomasses for biofuel production but the use of pine needles has not been realized so much yet. In the present study two batch digesters (each having two plastic made buckets: one for fermentation and second as gas holder) was used. In the first digester cow dung named as DIGESTER1 and in the second digester named as DIGESTER2 ground pine needles were co-digested with cow dung was used as a substrate. The feed material was collected from local sources. In both the digesters; inoculum prepared from cow dung was used. Biogas production using cow dung and pine needles under batch digester has been compared under similar field conditions. In both digesters tap water was used to make slurry in a ratio of 1:15 by weight. The different parameters like Total solid, volatile solid are measured & pH, biogas production & temperature are measured on daily basis. The surrounding temperature range during the testing period was between 15⁰C-23⁰C and slurry temperature inside the digester was in range of 17⁰C-26⁰C. The total volume of biogas production of the 70 days in DIGESTER1 and DIGESTER2 was 2.47 and 5.30 litres respectively and thus observed that pine needles are better substrate in comparison to cow dung.