Biogasification of Organic Solid Waste

Abstract

Biogasification occurs in the process of anaerobic fermentation for organic materials.The gas from the anaerobic fermentation process consists of 60%methane gas and 40% carbon dioxide and we call it Biogas.We can use it as the fuel for gas diesel generator obtaining the electricity and heat simultaneously or for CNG automobile.The biogas comes from solar energy and carbon dioxide, so we can also call it “Renewable Energy”. The Anaerobic fermentation is not new technique, but is rather regular technique such for the sewage sludge treatment.The anaerobic fermentation that I am going to describe here is for the organic solid wastes such as kitchen waste, yard waste or food waste and the technique for them has been newly developed in Europe this latest decade.In Japan, we treat the solid wastes by incineration as usual. But the imperfect incineration often yields contaminants that contain unknown material such as dioxins.The organic waste contains a lot of water and it makes the incineration unstable and the risk of emission of contamination increases.More over, the packaging material recycling act that is going to run from 2000 will reduce papers and plastics from the domestic wastes, so the ratio of organic wastes in the domestic wastes will increase relatively then.Biogasification process will become necessary technique to reduce the organic waste from the domestic wastes then and it can yield safe energy and compost.Biogasification technique will become one of most important techniques for environmental safeguards and recycling.