Simple Biogas Production Process
Tobechukwu Udeogu
Product Manager @PayonDelivery.com| Driving Product and Business Growth.
A schematic flow chart showing the simple illustration in the production of Biogas.
bio gas is an exciting renewable source of energy gotten from the breakdown of organic material in the absence of oxygen this process is known as Anaerobic Digestion (AD).
bio gas production process is divided into 4 processes.Each stage breaks the matter into smaller and smaller parts, until the only remaining substances are methane, carbon dioxide and water, three very simple molecules.
1- Hydrolysis- the first stage is hydrolysis.thus breaks down the complex organic matter – carbohydrates, fats and proteins – into simple sugars, fatty acids and amino acids. Carbohydrates, long chains of simple sugars, are broken down into single glucose molecules; proteins, long folded chains of amino acids, become individual amino acids; while fats, made up of head groups and fatty acid chains, have the latter part removed from the head groups and cut into smaller and smaller pieces.
2- Acidogenesis- this is the second stage of the anaerobic process, sees those single sugar molecules, fatty acids and amino acids broken down further into alcohols and volatile fatty acids (like ethanol and propionic acid), with by-products of carbon dioxide, ammonia and hydrogen sulphide.
3- Acetogenesis-this is the third stage- is the third stage: here, those volatile fatty acids and alcohols are converted again, this time into hydrogen, carbon dioxide, and acetic acid.
4- Methanogenesis- the final stage of the nature wonder,here bacterias known as methanogens or methanogenic archaea convert the remaining hydrogen and acetic acid into methane, and more carbon dioxide.
The beautiful thing about this exciting technology is that, there is an abundant of sources to drive this processes, from your daily kitchen organic waste, to animal and human sewage to all kind of organic waste you can lay your hand on.
this technology will not only drive an environmental sanity within your ecosystem, but will also bring about economic benefits that will substantially reflect in the annual spending on energy resources.