Effect of Temperature and pH on Biogas Production From Organic Fraction-MSW

Abstract

The growing global energy demand pushes towards a higher share of renewable energy sources. Biomass energy is one of the alternative renewable sources, whereas municipal solid waste (MSW) is one of the important renewable resources estimated in millions of tons per year, about 50% of it is organic. This amount can be treated and used for methane production in anaerobic digesters. The objective of this study is to figure out the effect of temperature and pH on methane production in laboratory-scale batch reactor of 2L size. Experiments were conducted at 35°C, 45°C, 55°C, 65°C, and pH was controlled to be close to 7.0. It was found that mesophilic conditions at 35°C, yielded the highest biogas production, and the lowest production was at 65°C. pH below 6.0 inhibited production. The biogas share was about 45%, which is encouraging compared to other published results