Co-digestion of human excreta and corncob to biogas production

Abstract

The growth of human population correlates with the increasing of food waste and human excreta (feces). Corncob are food wastes with C/N ratio of 40.3, while human excreta have C/N ratio of 7.9. These two wastes, if combined can potentially be converted into biogas. This experiment aims to study the potential use of human excreta waste combined with corncob waste are converted to biogas with anaerobic co-digestion method. The C/N is set at a ratio of 20, 25 and 30, ratio of F/M is defined 0.5, initial pH 7.6. In the stationary phase, the rate of biogas production is obtained on days 18 - 42 at a biogas rate of 485 ± 10 ml/day. The highest volume of biogas is produced at C/N ratio of 30 with a biogas yield of 1,200 liter/kg COD removed.