Title: Production of Biofuel from Cow Dung and Food Waste using locally made Anaerobic Digester
Authors: Musa Ahmed Abubakar; Bahijja Umar Isma'il; Musatapha Garba Muhammad and Umar Shittu
Volume: 9
Issue: 11
Pages: 212-219
Publication Date: 2025/11/28
Abstract:
Energy crisis due to unsustainable nature of fossil fuels and environmental pollution, especially effluent, food and other organic wastes are main big challenges the world is currently facing. To avoid further aggravation of the problems; renewable energy should be developed to increase the energy reserves in the country. The current research was conducted to generate biogas (or biofuel) from cow dung and food wastes by blending to get homogenates using locally made anaerobic digester. Food wastes (corn cobs, and potato peels at the ratio of 1;1) were collected from the Kano State Polytechnic canteen and fresh cow dung from Abattoir, Fagge LGA slaughter house as feedstock for the anaerobic digestion system to produce biogas energy. This design was to combined feedstock with high caloric content and anaerobic microbes. The volume of the biogas generated was measured using calibrated cylinder with paraffin oil displacement arrangement. The proximate analysis revealed that the various feedstock contained energy yielding nutrients but at varying concentrations. The study revealed that the pH decreased possibly as the bacteria produce acids in the digester. Hence, the volume of biogas production decreases in respect of number of days under the various experiments. Biogas production increased in the earlier days of the experiment and then started decreasing as acid concentration increased as shown by the decrease in pH. Thus, the combined waste slurry (cow dung and food waste) produced more gas at 15th day (36.55 mL) than the cow dung and food waste alone (20.30 mL and 12.25 mL). This may be attributed to the fact that food waste contained more carbohydrates and less protein contents than the dung. The total aerobic and anaerobic bacterial counts ranged from 6.5 x 107 to 2.7 x 108 and 1.7 × 107 to 2.5 × 107 cfu/ml, respectively. The microorganisms isolated from the digester during anaerobic digestion include Bacillus sp. and Pseudomonas sp. The research has proven that using combined feedstock (cow dung and food wastes), the efficiency of biogas production can be enhanced and increased. Therefore, biogas technology is a good way of providing solution to waste management and disposal problems apart from the generation of biofuel or clean energy from renewable energy sources.