EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF BIOGAS PRODUCTION USING BIODEGRADABLE MUNICIPAL WASTE

Waste is undesirable matter, which is most frequently generated by human activity. It is one of the sources of environmental pollution. In the contemporary world, with growing population, the amounts of generated waste are increasing as well. Unsorted municipal waste, including biodegradable waste, is transported to operated landfills. A negative impact of landfills on the environment is determined by waste as well as gas emissions and polluted sewage. Annual increase in amounts of waste is one of the most urgent problems of today, and therefore effective measures have to be employed to address it. In order to apply anaerobic organic waste treatment technologies and minimise the harmful effect on the environment, waste has to be sorted. The article presents the results of experimental investigations performed with fruit, vegetable and meat waste and its mixtures. The concentrations of methane, hydrogen sulphide and oxygen under mesophilic operation of a bioreactor were observed during the experiments. As determined experimentally, meat waste is mostly suitable for the production of biogas while mixtures of other biodegradable municipal wastes with meat also produce good results. Anaerobic digestion of meat waste produces the maximum amount of biogas, which averages to-0.8 m(3)/m(3)d. In this case, the methane content amounts to about 30%. Volume of biogas generated from digestion of meat and fruit mixture of waste was approximately 0.68 m(3)/m(3)d. Methane content in the mixture amounts to 25%. Meat and vegetable waste mixture has an average amount of biogas amounting to 0.54 m(3)/m(3)d, with 25% of methane content.