Biogas production from household solid waste-an alternative solid waste treatment for a communal scale

¹ Department of Environmental Engineering, Universitas Andalas, Padang, Indonesia
² Department of Mechanical Engineering, Universitas Andalas, Padang, Indonesia

^* Corresponding author: sraharjo@eng.unand.ac.id

Abstract

Current practice in Indonesia shows that Household Solid Waste (HSW) is handled by transferring to landfill site. Meanwhile, around 68% of HSW is composed of biodegradable components, which has potential for biogas production. The current study compares some commercial activators including Green Phosko (GP7) and Effective microorganisms 4 (EM4) with homemade activator in 200 L anaerobic digester equipped with manual mixing for processing kitchen waste (KW). pH and ratio of solid waste to water were set at 8 and 1:2, respectively. Batch experiments show that digester #3 with homemade activator shows superior performance compared to commercial activators. Meanwhile, the digesters with commercial activators show better performance compared to digester control (without activator). Digester #3 produces 1.35 L CH₄/kg total solid (TS) and 1.14 L CH₄/kg volatile solid (VS). Current work suggests that the homemade activator has the most suitable methanogen bacterium compared to the commercial activators.