Anaerobic digestion of donkey dung for biogas production

Abstract

Biogas can provide a solution to some of South Africa’s energy needs, especially in rural areas of the Eastern Cape province that have plentiful biogas substrates from donkeys, goats, sheep, cattle and chicken. We investigated the effectiveness of donkey dung for biogas production using a designed and constructed cylindrical field batch biogas digester. The donkey dung was collected from the University of Fort Hare’s Honeydale Farm and was analysed for total solids, volatile solids, total alkalinity, calorific value, pH, chemical oxygen demand and ammonium nitrogen. The biogas composition was analysed using a gas analyser. We found that donkey dung produced biogas with an average methane yield of 55% without co-digesting it with other wastes. The results show that donkey dung is an effective substrate for biogas production.