Current World Environment

Production of biogas using animal dung is well documented. Nutritional supplement enhances microbial activity and ultimately results in increase biogas production. Solanum tuberosum (potato) is a vegetable crop grown in most parts of world. It is a rich source of carbohydrate starch and many minerals. Present experiment was conducted in 5L capacity glass digester bottles filled with mixture of buffalo dung and water at 5.3% total solids. A total of six sets were prepared, three as control and three as test. Control sets were fed daily with buffalo dung water mixture throughout the period of experimentation, i.e. 80 days, whereas in test, from 51^st day onward digesters were filled with mixture of dung and boiled potato with water. Feed was added daily in the amount of 120mL upto 80 days from beginning. On first day 12 mL fresh digested biogas slurry from running biogas plant was also added in all the digesters as inoculum.  From 41th day onward biogas production was recorded by water displacement method and compared. Results reveal that in test digesters addition of potato shows an immediate and long lasting effect and increases biogas production between 90.48 and 192.86% higher than control sets.

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