Solid State Fermentation of Wheat Straw Admixture with Cattle Dung for Biogas Production

Biomethanation of wheat straw admixture with cattle dung was experimented under Total solids (TS) concentration of 22 % in five batch fed digesters (1.5 m3) to evaluate the biogas production potentiality. The combined gas production in the digesters mixed fed with wheat straw and cattle dung in the ratio of 12 on dry weight basis ranged between 1023 and 3654 L/day. Pre-treatment of the wheat straw prior to biomethanation with 0.03 % NaOH solution enhanced the biogas yield by 1.25 times. The correlation between the ambient temperature and biogas production was positive and statistically significant for both the NaOH pre-treated wheat straw (R2=0.79) and wheat straw devoid of NaOH pre-treatment (R2=0.77) admixture with cattle dung.