Assessing biogas potential of slaughter waste: Can biogas production solve a serious waste problem at abattoirs?

摘要

Management of solid waste and wastewater in Namibia is a growing concern. This study investigated the biogas potential of slaughter waste at a small stock abattoir in southern Namibia. Laboratory experiments with five different mixes of blood; stomach content and manure from sheep were tested. Preliminary findings suggest that the most optimum mixture of slaughter waste was relatively large amounts of stomach and intestine content. The blood proportion should b e kept relatively low, since the high nitrogen contents in the blood may inhibit the biogas production. The substrate mixture reflecting the actual ratio of waste generated in the slaughterprocess resulted in the highest methane production. This suggests that it is possible to produce viable amounts of biogas only using the waste produced at the abattoir, without adding other green substrate. Findings presented here togetherwith results from a larger biogas digester, will be elaborated in the full paper.