ANAEROBIC DIGESTION OF MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE

Abstract

The application of anaerobic digestion of municipal solid waste, though well established in many European and other developed countries, the full scale anaerobic digestion of MSW is still in its inthncy in India. A total of six different samples of MSW has been taken and anaerobically digested in Oxitop serum bottles and their biogas and methane generation potential is studied. It is inferred that around 45% of the biogas generated is methane taking into account that the gas collection was carried out with glass syringe method, which is an approximate method. The Biogas generation potential and the bio methane potential of three major Indian cities namely Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad had been studied by installation of three anaerobic reactors of 10 L capacity. The theoretical methane and biogas generation are compared to the experimentally derived results. The MSW of Hyderabad city has the potential to generate 2.19 * 106 m3 methane per year. The Delhi MSW could generate around 3.87 * 106 m3 methane annually and the Mumhai MSW has a potential to produce around 5.30 * 106 m3 methane annually. Also, the characterization of the MSW had been studied for the influent and effluent samples experimentally. It had been found that the concentration of arninonical nitrogen increases and the concentration of nitrate and total phosphorus in the samples decreases at the end of anaerobic digestion.