On-Farm Anaerobic Digester and Fuel Alcohol Plant

摘要

An anaerobic digestion system, coupled with a fuel alcohol plant, was constructed and set up on a southern Illinois farm as part of an integrated farm energy system. The digester heating can be done using waste hot water from the alcohol plant and biogas from the digester can be used as fuel for the alcohol production. The anaerobic digestion system is made up of the following components; a hog finishing house with a manure pit; a solids handling pump to feed the manure; and a 13,000 gallon railroad tank car as the main digester vessel and pump to transfer effluent from the digester to a 150,000 gallon storage tank. The digester was operated for sufficient time to demonstrate the use of hot water in an automated digester temperature control system. Sufficient biogas was produced to demonstrate the use of biogas in a converted propane boiler.