An Investigation into the Effect of Some Selected pH Control Chemicals {Ca(OH)2, NaHCO3 and CaCO3} on Batch Digestion of Organic Fraction of Municipal Solid Waste: A Case Study of Jimeta Metropolis
Ojo Samuel *
Department of Chemical Engineering, Federal Polytechnic, P.M.B. 35 Mubi, Adamawa State, Nigeria
Baba Mohammed
Department of Chemical Engineering, Federal Polytechnic, P.M.B. 35 Mubi, Adamawa State, Nigeria
Aaron K. Bakut
Department of Chemical Engineering, Federal Polytechnic, P.M.B. 35 Mubi, Adamawa State, Nigeria
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
The large organic matter of solid waste such as agricultural and municipal solid waste offer great potential for biogas production. This work has been carried out to investigate the effect of some selected pH control chemicals on anaerobic digestion process which is expected to increase the yield of biogas from the digestion of organic fraction of municipal solid waste. The different pH control chemicals used in this work are NaHCO3, CaCO3 and Ca(OH)2, which gave the following results (yield) 7350 cm3/162.60 g V.S, 2500 cm3/162.60 g V.S and 0 cm3/162.60 g V.S of Biogas respectively in comparism with the controlled digester which yielded 600 cm3/162.60 g V.S after digestion for a period of 30 days. The result obtained shows that NaHCO3 is the most suitable to be used as a pH control chemical in comparism to the others and most effective in converting volatile solid contained in the organic fraction and equally served as the best buffer.
Keywords: Anaerobic digestion, volatile solid, solid waste, biogas yield and pH