PRELIMINARY STUDY FOR METHANE GENERATION OF FELCRA NASARUDDIN USING ANAEROBIC DIGESTION

Utilization of abundant waste by converting them into a useful renewable
energy by adopting the third generation of green technology development has
attracted much attention from the world as a source of the depleting fossil fuels.
Other than awareness towards Carbon Credit and Clean Development Mechanism
promoted in Kyoto Protocol to developing countries, development in biochemical
transformation of biomass by means of anaerobic digestion to generate methane gas
was also one of the enthralling fields.
This project is conducted as a preliminary study with aims to generate
methane gas from anaerobic digestion of palm oil mill effluent taken from palm oil
mill activity in FELCRA Nasaruddin, situated in Bota, Perak. The purpose of the
project is to develop a working prototype of a digester, which will be used to
generate methane gas by applying the conceptual of biochemical transformation of
anaerobic digestion. A lot of literature studies had been done to support the
proposed project. Numerous related equations were used as to support the theory and
to proceed with the prototype fabrication and sample testing. The digester was
designed using an engineering drawing tool, AutoCAD before it is fabricated. Palm
oil mill effluent (POME) is taken from selected pond in FELCRA Nasaruddin, Perak
and testing is done under controlled condition.
After that, the prototype is fabricated and experiments were carried out to
observe the performance of the digester. Eighteen Litres POME samples taken were
digested inside the digester for ten days of retention time and volume of gas captured
are taken into record. The result of the experiments were summarized in the
graphical representation. Discussions were made to comment and to analyze the
results and suggestions to improve the efficiencies of the digester were made.