The utilization of mushroom growing media waste as raw material for biogas production: Energy productivity ratio (EPR) study

Abstract

Indonesia is one of the countries with the largest crude palm oil (CPO) production. Besides CPO production the mills also produce various type of wastes in large quantity. Oil palm empty fruit bunches (OPEFB) are the largest solid waste produced during the process. One of the OPEFB utilizations that has been done by the community around the mills area is to make mushroom as growing media. However, the rest OPEFB from mushroom media which cannot be degraded becomes a new problem for the community. The technology that can be used to overcome this waste is the anaerobic composting process. This paper describes the utilizing OPEFB waste from the rest of the mushroom growth media into energy through the anaerobic composting process. The energy productivity ratio (EPR) was also calculated and reviewed during the process and utilizing by products in the output. The result revealed that the design of OPEFB waste treatment into biogas and its purification are expected to be applied to the concept of clean production (zero waste) and the productivity ratio of energy values obtained from calculations was > 1. This shows that the needs of energy output in the pilot plant are greater than the input.