Biogas Production using Different Wastes: A Review

Abstract

Biogas as a renewable energy has recently been receiving attention. This is due to its numerous advantages specifically in energy source and waste treatment etc. Several challenges including amount of gas produce, nature of substrates and factors affecting production remains a problem. Hence this review is aimed at investigating different wastes used in biogas production (nature of substrates), amount of gas produced and factors that made a remarkable impact on the outcome of the production. In this review stages of biogas production, purification of biogas, biomass (substrate) pretreatment, classes of wastes used in biogas and their various outcomes, setting the anaerobic digester, factors influencing the rate biogas production and the biogas industry had been extensively reviewed. It was discovered that different substrates produced different amount of biogas. A substrate with less polysaccharide e.g cellulose and higher microbial population produces more gas than substrates with high polysaccharide and less microbial population. This is clearly due to the fact that biogas is a by-product of microbial activities; higher number of the microbes will increase gas production. Substrate with high polysaccharide have slower digestion rate than those with less polysaccharide. Hence these and other factors should be considered before making the choice of substrate to be used.