Generating gas from waste is the dream of many homes and industries as the technology has the potential to reduce the use of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG).
Many however, get disappointed when they realise the gas they generate isn’t enough to meet their demands and therefore abandon the technology altogether.
A Chemical Engineer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Prof. Lawrence Darkwah is encouraging the use of the technology for sanitational gains.
Prof. Darkwah who is a Fellow of KNUST’s The Brew Hammond Energy Centre loathes hearing the word, ‘Biogas’ for the technology known as Anaerobic Digestion.
He notes the overemphasis on the gas from the technology relegates other useful benefits to the background.
He said the liquid and solid fractions of the product from the digester can be used as fertilizer.
Prof. Darkwah revealed: “The slurry (known as the digestate) can be used as fertilizer and I have some of our graduates who are field implementers and students who are looking at the business side of that”.
“If you say, biogas technology, it drifts everyone’s mind to the gas we’ll obtain from anaerobic digestion. We would rather wish, at The Energy Centre, to focus more on the direct sanitation benefits of the technology. The gas is a bonus that will be obtained after the microorganism breaks down the feedstock and release gases like methane.
“But if we focus on the terminology of biogas, it rather tilts the mindset as if that technology is there to produce only the gas. The technology does more for environmental sanitation purposes. Our research has shown that it can have as much as one third of household waste redirected into the digester,” he said.