Portable Biogas Digesters for Domestic Use in Jordanian Villages

Abstract

Essential energy needs are not always met in poor and rural areas of developing counties; therefore, natural energy sources are necessary to mitigate this problem. Rural areas inhabitants utilize methane as a replacement for cooking gas to reduce their gas bill. Methane gas can be produced from a biogas digester; however, operating a large digester in a densely populated village in Jordan can be challenging due to inefficient village waste management systems. On the other hand, using a small-scale portable biogas digester to generate biogas could overcome these problems. In this work, three biogas digester feedstocks for a small portable biogas digester from natural sources available in Jordanian villages such as human and animal waste were designed and evaluated. The three feedstocks are food waste, human waste, and a mixture of human and food waste. The parameters tested were the digester size and the biogas production. The results showed that the best digester for portable application was that which digested a mixture of human and food waste; for a five-member family, this type of digester provided 115% of the family’s cooking gas requirements with a digester volume of 0.54 m3. This design, while applicable for a typical rural Jordanian family, can also be utilized globally.

Keywords

• portable biogas digesters
• liquefied petroleum gas
• waste management
• Jordanian village