Speakers
Please indicate whether<br>this abstract may be<br>published online<br>(Yes / No)
NO
Would you like to <br> submit a short paper <br> for the Conference <br> Proceedings (Yes / No)?
YES
Apply to be<br> considered for a student <br> award (Yes / No)?
YES
Level for award<br> (Hons, MSc, <br> PhD, N/A)?
PhD
Main supervisor (name and email)<br>and his / her institution
DR DAVID TINARWO
Abstract content <br> (Max 300 words)<br><a href="http://events.saip.org.za/getFile.py/access?resId=0&materialId=0&confId=34" target="_blank">Formatting &<br>Special chars</a>
Every biogas digester is designed with a gas storage chamber of volume Vc. The chamber stores the gas accumulated as the result of the fermentation process within the digestion chamber until the pressure P for the specific period of time is reached. For this study a small scale 6m3 prefabricated biogas digester system has been deployed underground in order to study the possibility of distributing the gas to the appliance forcefully immediately after the initial supply has reached the zero pressure as displayed on the gauge. According to the manufacturer specification, the digester has 1.13 m3 as the maximum gas the chamber can hold. The possible upper limit of the pressure inside the chamber is 8.5 kPa. Exceeding this limit can destroy the chamber; however, a system is designed so that if the upper limit pressure is reached the gas escapes through the outlet and inlet. It was found in this study that when 0.00 kPa is displayed on the gauge, the biogas at the area application is almost reduced with no pressure making any difference to the appliance. However, when a gas detector was positioned at the end of the gas outlet pipe it detected a useful concentration level of CH4 for a reasonable period of time. This led to the second test using a meter to measure the amount of biogas that can be forcibly removed from the digester using a simple hand held vacuum pump placed at the end of the gas supplying pipe. The aim of this study was to develop a method that can be used to aid biogas digesters operators to optimise the production of biogas at low cost.
Key words: biogas digester, zero pressure, vacuum pump,
