SIMULATION OF A CO-DIGESTER PLANT USING ASPEN PLUS

摘要

Like many countries, Botswana is no exceptions when it comes to experiencing energy challenges due to fossil fuel depletion and increase in prices. The world is shifting to green energy due to growing environmental concerns over global climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels. Besides fossil fuels, biogas can be utilised to meet the rising energy challenges. Biogas can be obtained from anaerobic digestion of biodegradable waste in the absence of oxygen. Different feedstock's can be used to produce biogas through anaerobic digestion and this is referred to as co-digestion. Though it is not a new method of producing biogas, studies showing process simulation and analysis are limited, in particular the co-digestion of food waste and cow-dung. This paper evaluates the amount of biogas produced from co-digestion of cow dung and food waste using Advanced System for Process Engineering (Aspen) Plus software. The stoichiometry method is used to estimate the amount of biogas released from co-digestion and the electrical production potential also calculated.