Full Length Research Paper

Biomethanation potential of Jatropha (Jatropha curcas) cake along with buffalo dung

Shilpkar Prateek¹*, Roal Gopal⁴, Shah Mayur² and Deepti Shilpkar³

¹Biogas Research and Extension Centre, Gujarat Vidyapith, At and Post- Sadara, District- Gandhinagar, Gujarat.

²Department of Chemistry, Gujarat Vidyapith, At and Post- Sadara, District- Gandhinagar, Gujarat.

³Department of Botany, Jai Narayan Vyas University, Jodhpur, Rajasthan.

⁴Department of Microbiology, M. B. Patel Science College, Sardar Patel University, Anand, Gujarat.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: pshilpkar@yahoo.com.

Accepted 7 September, 2009

   Abstract

A laboratory experiment was conducted to find out the biomethanation potential of dried and powdered Jatropha cake along with buffalo dung at 6% total solids. The experiment was run on daily feeding basis in five litre capacity glass digesters for 180 days. Biogas production was recorded at 24 h interval. Quality of biogas and nutritive value of effluent slurry was also determined. Results show significantly higher (139.20%) biogas production in test (Jatropha cake + Buffalo dung) over control (Buffalo dung only) digesters with methane content of 71.74%. Nutritive value of effluent slurry of test digester was significantly higher in terms of available nitrogen and potassium; calcium; magnesium and carbonate contents than that of control digesters. Co-digestion results in 92.94% decrease in chemical oxygen demand.

Key words: Biomethanation, Jatropha cake, buffalo dung, co-digestion.