Are You Running an Anerobic Digester for Biogas? (Cooking/Heating Gas Production)

[Douglas.Curtis]

Fuel is not getting any cheaper lately...

How long have you been producing biogas??
What type of digester do you use, what do you like/not-like about it, and how would you make it better?

(Edit: An example of a biodigester )
What do you use for storing and use of the gas.
What materials are you digesting and what is your approximate methane output?
Are you inoculating with anything to increase the production or quality of the gas?

Thank you so much!

 

[St. Phatty]

When I lived in San Diego, my neighbors were former "homesteaders" in Oregon.

They used their Latrine to make Methane.

Basically it was one drum upside down, capturing gas from a drum that held the Poop.

There was a flange in the top surface of the upside down drum (so technically the bottom of that drum). Then a hose ran off to the cook-stove. The hose had a valve, near the stove.


The other facility I've seen, about 100,000 times larger, was the Natural Gas generator next to Sonoma Compost.

When they built Sonoma Compost, they laid down 22 acres of recycled concrete, on top of the old landfill.

Then they run pipes from the landfill, to the generator next door.

it generates 2.5 Megawatts, enough for about 2000 homes.

Sonoma Compost Co. - Certified Organic Compost and Mulches in Sonoma County

Sonoma Compost Company produces certified organic compost and mulches from 100% recycled organics. Used by Sonoma County grape growers, farmers, landscapers and home gardeners.

www.SonomaCompost.com

>>> How long have you been producing biogas??

I got a tour of the Sonoma Compost facility in 2008, and it was not new. I think the generator next to it has been running at least 20 years.

 

[St. Phatty]

I took a picture of my algae yesterday.

In one of the pans of water, the algae is brown.

I think it might have died.

It was laying on the bottom of the pan.

Then yesterday morning a lot of it had risen to the top, and there were bubbles.

I suspect that I may be looking at Methane. IF IT WAS ALIVE - would be just Oxygen (what the algae "exhales".)

But I think this Algae is dead, and that's why the masses of dead brown Algae float up, off the bottom.

If you do a websearch about "Methane from Algae", a lot of the links mention Cyanobacteria, but this is not Cyanobacteria.

It is hard for me to get an in-focus picture of the bubbles. There's a medium number of them.

It could be CO2, if there were bacteria chewing away at the algae. Bacteria being animals that exhale CO2. Maybe that's what's pushing the Primo Pond Scum to the surface.

In general I think anaerobic digestion tends to produce methane. Less or no Oxygen to fuel combustion and make *O type molecules.

So instead the Carbon hooks up with the Hydrogen and makes C2H4, Methane.

 

[Douglas.Curtis]

I put a link to an example of what I mean in the OP for clarification.