Potential to Produce Biogas from Tannery Waste

Abstract

The demand for fuel has been rising exponentially as the population is increasing. This calls for a need for alternate sources of energy and clean technology to address global warming problems. Large scale production of tannery waste is associated with land pollution, air pollution and water pollution. Biogas and bio-fertilizer can be co-generated by bio-catalyzed anaerobic digestion of tannery waste and leather by-products. This relieves pressure on the use of electricity, natural petroleum fuels and the environment itself. The key aim of this project is to utilize and make use of tannery waste dumped by leather industries through an anaerobic digestion process to yield the highest biogas yield as possible. The main statement of the problem focuses on the unsuitable carbon- nitrogen ratio in the tannery biomass which cause frequent ammonia production which greatly inhibit the anaerobic digestion process. Therefore the solution of this problem can be achieved through mixing the tannery waste with a different organic biomass such as cow dug in order to provide the desired C/N ratio suitable for anaerobic digestion. This blending of two or more substrates is called anaerobic co-digestion and in this case its aim is to reduce the nitrogen proportion with respect to carbon in the substrate in order to reduce inhibition of biogas production. The major equipment to be designed for the process are the hydrolytic reactor to hydrolyze the organic matter into smaller units, the bio digester for fermentation and the distillation column for biogas purification.