Co-Digestion Performance of Chicken Droppings, Fruit and Vegetable Wastes, and Slaughterhouse Residues in Biogas Production
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54536/jsere.v2i2.8675Keywords:
Anaerobic Co-Digestion, Biogas Kinetics, Chicken Droppings, Fruit & Vegetable Waste, Methane Yield, Slaughterhouse ResidueAbstract
Low practical uptake of biogas technology in Kenya is partly linked to limited knowledge of the range of substrates, beyond cattle manure, that can be digested individually or in combination. This study evaluated the co-digestion potential of chicken droppings (CHDR), fruit and vegetable wastes (FRVE) and slaughterhouse residue (SHRS), mixed alone and in binary and ternary combinations (CDFV, CDSH, FVSH, CFVS), for biogas production. Substrate mixtures were characterized for total solids (TS), volatile solids (VS), pH and chemical oxygen demand (COD) before and after digestion. Ten-litre batch digesters, without added inoculum, were monitored for 84 days, with biogas volume measured by water displacement, while parallel two-litre digesters were sampled every six days to quantify methane, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, ammonia and water vapour content using a Gasera One analyzer. Biogas yield was modelled using the first-order kinetic and modified Gompertz equations. Co-digestion of chicken droppings and fruit and vegetable wastes (CDFV) produced the most favourable substrate characteristics (near-neutral pH of 6.98, COD of 54,559 mg/L) and the highest cumulative biogas volume (28,856 mL), significantly outperforming all other mixtures (p < 0.0001) except SHRS, which ranked second (17,517 mL). The ternary mixture (CFVS) produced the least biogas (4,119 mL). The first-order model fitted CHDR, CDSH, and FVSH best (R² = 0.87–0.96; RMSE = 1.29–2.95 L), while the modified Gompertz model captured the extended lag phase evident in SHRS (11.2 days). SHRS produced the highest methane concentration (774,246 ppm), whereas FVSH produced the least. These findings identify chicken droppings/fruit-and-vegetable-waste co-digestion as the most promising combination for biogas volume, and slaughterhouse residue as the best source of methane-rich biogas, offering practical substrate-selection guidance for small- and medium-scale digester operators.
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