PII:

Biomass and Bioenergy Vol. 14, No. 5/6, pp. 415423, 1998
# 1998 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved
Printed in Great Britain
0961-9534/98 $19.00 + 0.00
S0961-9534(98)00003-8

PLUG FLOW DIGESTORS FOR BIOGAS GENERATION

FROM LEAF BIOMASS
K. S. JAGADISH*, H. N. CHANAKYA, P. RAJABAPAIAH and V. ANAND
ASTRA, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012, India
(Received 13 January 1997; revised 8 December 1997; accepted 16 December 1997)
AbstractThe low, family level availability of animal dung in rural Indian families restricts the spread
of biogas technology. This has warranted the design and development of novel biogas plants for other
biomass feedstocks. The plug-ow digestors discussed in this paper circumvent the problems associated
with oating of biomass feedstocks and enable a semi-continuous operation. The long term operation
of such biogas plants using a mixed green leaf biomass feedstock is reported along with its design features. Results show that during long term operation, such biogas plants have the ability to produce up
to 0.5 m3 gas/m3 reactor/day (ambient conditions) at specic conversion rates ranging between 180 and
360 l biogas/kg TS (total solids) at a 35 day retention time. # 1998 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.
All rights reserved
KeywordsPlugow; leaf biomass; mixed feedstock; continuous biogas plant.

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1. Biogas potential in India

The use of animal dung for biogas production
has been practiced quite extensively all over
the world. However, the availability of animal
dung is quite limited. For instance, even if
India uses all the available cattle dung, it cannot provide cooking gas to more than a third
of the rural families. Estimates of biogas potential in India range from 15 to 23 million
plants for a rural population of about 100
million households.13 It is hence clear that if
it is desired to produce more biogas to meet
local energy needs, there is a need to look for
other feedstocks, along with animal dung.
Tropical countries with an adequate endowment of water and land resources often produce an abundance of biomass. Leafy
biomass, in particular, has the potential to
produce biogas. This type of biomass, after
meeting the fodder requirements of animals,
can be conveniently processed for biogas. It
can also be observed that quite an amount of
biomass, which is not palatable to animals, is
also often available in villages. Such biomass
can also be utilized for conversion to biogas.
Recent studies4,5 showed that the total potential of leafy biomass production per annum in
*Author for correspondence.
415

India is of the order of 1130 million tons

(dry). Even if only 10% of this biomass could
be mobilized for biogas production, about
67% of the rural families could then be provided with biogas for cooking, while the other
33% could obtain biogas from cattle dung.
1.2. Small-scale digestors for leaf biomass
The biogas potential of leafy biomass feedstocks is almost twice that which can be produced by animal dung. Most of the studies613
on biomethanation of biomass have been laboratory scale studies which show the biogas
production potential of biomass feedstocks to
be in the range of 300500 l biogas/kg total
solids (TS). In spite of such reports, semi-continous plant designs and operation techniques
have been slow in their evolution, owing to
several operation problems, listed below:
1. Time consuming feedstock pretreatment
procedures.3,1416
2. Diculties in feeding untreated leafy biomass feedstocks into conventional biogas
plant inlets.14
3. Floating and scum formation leading to
poor decomposition.17,18
4. Diculties in frequent spent feedstock
removal.19,20
5. Volatile fatty acid (VFA) over-production
and resultant digestor failure.16

416

K. S. JAGADISH et al.

Fig. 1. Sketch of the masonry vault based 5 m3 biogas/day leaf biomass plug ow biogas plant; longitudinal section (1a) and cross section (1b).

Eorts to ferment biomass feedstocks in

conventional dung-based biogas plants have
largely been unsuccessful due to the abovementioned problems. One common approach
in India7,14,17,2123 has been to use between 10
and 20% admixtures of biomass feedstocks in
viscous animal dung slurries fermented in conventional Indian biogas plants8,14,17,2123. This
limitation has led to recourse to batch or fedbatch
approaches
in
modied
digestors8,13,15,20,24. Much of the early eorts in
biomethanation of biomass have been with
partially modied slurry-based digestors and
with biomass feedstocks used in a powdered/
pulverized form.14,15,18,2527 Elaborate pretreatment steps, such as ne chopping or pulverizing,10,18 alkali treatment,15 aerobic precomposting,16 etc. are unlikely to nd favour
among users in rural India where grid power
is unreliable and chemicals dicult to procure.
It has been found that, in general, the addition
of biomass as admixtures in cattle dung biogas
plants lead to increased gas yield. However,
feeding chopped biomass was frequently dicult due to oatation of the large biomass particles. Hence, simple methods of pretreatment
and alternative biogas plant designs are
necessary.
Batch operated, dry fermentors with a high
level of inoculum,24 forced submergence of
biomass feedstocks under fermentor liquid,28
solid state stratied bed digestors29,30 and plug
ow techniques31 are some alternative
approaches to solving the above-mentioned
problems. From many such trials, the use of
alternative processes and biogas plant designs
which accept biomass feedstocks with minimal
pre-processing, as well as operating with the

basic fermentation properties of biomass,

namely oating and VFA uxes, appear a better alternative. In this paper, we discuss the
plug ow approach and its potential.
Many attempts were made earlier at the
ASTRA Centre to convert leaf biomass feedstocks to biogas in modied oating drum
digestors, using a simple top feeding mechanism, wide horizontal outlets and cattle dung
slurry as the initial bacterial inoculum.33 Such
digestors operated for around 180 days till the
digestors (the gas holder) were full of partially
digested oating biomass. After the 180 day
period, no further feeding was possible, since
the spent biomass could not ow out of the
one or two outlets provided for the purpose.
The biomass showed a tendency to move
radially away from the point of feeding. While
these experiments showed the feasibility of
using biomass as the sole feedstock for biogas
generation, the circular plan of the digestor
was ill-suited for a continuously fed biogas
plant with biomass as feedstock.
A few semi-batch operated, garbage-fed biogas plants have been operated on a trial basis
in India without a signicant level of documentation. Two biogas plants using leafy biomass and kitchen wastes were in use in
Gandhigram and Trichur in South India.20
These plants were essentially rectangular in
plan with biomass feeding at one of the (smaller) sides with intermittent spent biomass
removal. Much of the digested biomass feedstock was held under the metallic gas holder
and this phenomenon often reduced the gas
storage levels signicantly. From the above experience it became obvious that (a) the solid
biomass feedstocks need to move horizontally

Plug ow digestors

Fig. 2. Sketch of the biogas plant after modications; a

second layer of masonry in the vault portions and the addition of a water pond was used to prevent gas leakages
(all dimensions are in metres).

as in a plug ow reactor and (b) the gas storage and digestor need to be reasonably separated if a continuous biogas plant is to be
designed for biomass feed stock.
1.3. Plug ow digestor designs
1.3.1. Evolution of digestor design and design
features. These early experiences clearly
showed that owing to the oating tendencies
of most biomass feedstocks, a biogas plant
using leaf biomass feedstocks must be
designed for horizontal movement of digesting
biomass. Plug ow reactors, rectangular in
plan, are ideal for the situation. Most leafy
biomass feedstocks quickly stratify into oating solids and a dilute digestor liquid, unless
the digestor contents are continuously agitated. It must, therefore, be noted that in
these digestors the major substrate is not a
homogenous liquid or slurry (which is the normal situation for plug ow reactors32) and
plug ow is to be achieved only for these partially oating solids. The horizontal movement
of the biomass during daily feeding may then
be considered analogous to the displacement
of uid in the plug ow reactor. Such plug
ow digestors for oating biomass feedstocks
may have a length:width ratio in the range of
22.5, although liquid-based plug ow reactors
may need larger length:width ratios to avoid
mixing.
1.3.2. Field scale plug ow digestor with
masonry vaulted cover. A biogas plant to produce 5 m3 gas/day was designed and constructed in 1992. The essential features of this
biogas plant are shown in Figs 1 and 2. Brick

417

masonry construction was used for the walls

of the digestor as well as the xed cover gas
holder. This cover was a cylindrical vaulted
design constructed by using a mobile steel
form. The green leaf biomass could be fed
every day through the 30 cm diameter inlet
pipe at one end of the plant. The spent biomass was intended to be removed from the
other end at intervals of about 2 weeks. This
plant was operated as a xed cover, variable
gas pressure biogas plant initially. However,
subsequently, it was operated as a constant
pressure plant by connecting the gas outlet to
a oating drum gas storage unit.
1.3.3. Experimental plug ow digestor with
metallic cover. A new design of plug ow biogas plant was developed to overcome two
shortcomings of the above design. Two problems were noticed while operating the 5 m3
biogas/day digestor: (a) Feeding of biomass
into a 30 cm diameter opening while the width
of the plant was 2.5 m was not satisfactory.
The two corners at the loading end would
obviously become stagnation points for the
biomass. It was hence felt that biomass feeding
should be done preferably over the entire
width or through a number of smaller openings covering the entire width. (b) The prole
of the biomass inside the plant could not be
seen or deciphered due to the xed nature of
the digestor cover. A xed cover which could
be easily detached would help understanding
of the biomass prole within and consequently
lead to better designs.
A smaller plant was designed to avoid problems of procuring large quantities of biomass.
Figure 3 shows the design of the second
plant (0.5 m3 biogas/day). It consists of a rectangular pit of dimensions 0.9  2.5  0.9 m in
which a xed galvanised mild steel gas holder
rests. The gas holder is held in place through
weight. The biomass is fed in over the entire
width of the plant.
2. METHODS

2.1. Feedstocks, feed rates and feeding operation

The biogas plants were mostly fed with herbaceous and semi-brous terrestrial weeds and
leaf biomass (Table 1). All the biomass feedstocks were fed in the green state in the range
of 1418% TS (average 16.6). Biomass feed-

K. S. JAGADISH et al.

418

Fig. 3. The 0.5 m3 biogas/day, pilot scale experimental plug ow biogas plant operated on leaf biomass
feedstocks showing its cross section (all dimensions in metres).

stocks were manually pushed into these biogas

plants using a wooden pole or piston-like
device. The eld scale plant was fed initially at
50 kg (fresh weight) daily while subsequently it
was operated at 100 kg/day. The experimental
plugow biogas plant with metallic cover was
fed at 10 kg/day.
2.2. Feed pre-processing
In all the cases, biomass feedstocks were
chopped into pieces of 1520 cm prior to feeding. Feedstocks smaller than 15 cm were fed
without chopping or size reduction. In the
case of feedstocks fed to the experimental
plugow digestor, the chopped biomass feedstock was kept under water overnight, compacted into a briquette using a simple press
(with or without clay used as binder in the
ratio of 1:1 or 1:4, clay:biomass) to facilitate
feeding denser biomass. These biomass briquettes were fed at daily intervals (about
10 kg). The feed quantity varied a little erratically in the rst 100 day owing to diculties in
controlling the weight of the pressed briquettes. However, biomass briquettes with
clay binder were used for a period of about

6 months. Spent feedstock that accumulated

near the outlet was manually removed at 7
15 day intervals, depending upon the diculty
experienced with feedstock addition. This
allowed continuous operation.
2.3. Inoculum and start-up
Both the digestors were started using cattle
dung slurry as the starting inoculum. These
biogas plants were initially lled with dilute
cattle dung slurry of about 3% TS. Both the
plants were fed at half the feed rate (alternate
days) during the rst week. Daily feeding of
biomass feedstock commenced during the second week. After a period of about 23 months, most of the original cattle dung was
displaced and there was very little cattle dung
slurry left within the digestor when experimentation started with leaf biomass, and therefore
it did not interfere with reporting of gas production from biomass feedstocks.
2.4. Measurements of gas production
Both the digestors were connected to oating drum gas holder assemblies that collected
and stored gas at 56 cm water column press-

Table 1. Plant/tree species used as leaf biomass feedstock

1. Withania somnifera
3. Euphorbia notoptera
5. Glyricidia maculata
7. Albizzia lebbeck
9. Cassia sp.
11. Jacaranda mimosifolia

2. Synedrella nodiora
4. Parthenium hysterophorus
6. Melia azadirach
8. Eupatorium sp.
10. Tabebuia rosea
12. Tecoma sp.

Plug ow digestors

ure. The daily gas production was monitored

by measuring the rise in the gas holder levels
between two xed time intervals in a 24 h
period, after which the gas collected was
vented or ared. Gas measurements were carried out twice daily.
2.5. Determination of biomass prole in the
digestor
The metallic cover of the experimental plant
was removed twice during the operation of
this plant. The extent of oating or submergence as well as the mass and bulk volume of
the decomposing biomass feedstock were
determined with reference to the liquid level.
Samples representing biomass decomposing
under submergence as well as under oating
conditions were collected along the length at
50 cm intervals. These samples were analyzed
for various parameters, such as total solids,
volatile solids (VS), composition, etc.
2.6. Physico-chemical analyses
The TS and VS of the various feed mixes,
the decomposing biomass within the digestor,
as well as that of the digestor liquid was determined by standard methods. The health of the
digestor was monitored by a test of ammability of gas being vented and, if not ammable,
by a gas chromatograph using a porapak-Q
column with a thermal conductivity detector
and hydrogen carrier30 (standard methods,
APHA, AWWA and WPCF, 1975).

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

3.1. Suitability of biomass feedstocks

Two experimental plants were built at the
Indian Institute of Science to explore the feasibility of such plug ow digestors to produce
biogas from leafy biomass feedstocks. These
plants were intended for use with green brous
biomass feedstocks with a moderate level of
lignin. Biomass feedstocks such as these are
characterized by30
1. An ability to undergo about 4060% TS
destruction.
2. Retaining some of the original tissue integrity
3. Remaining as a matted mass at the end of
the digestion period.
4. Producing an initial VFA ux sucient to
suppress methanogenesis.

419

5. Remaining aoat during the entire fermentation period.

This is in contrast to typical food, fruit and
vegetable wastes, wherein the major `cementing' fraction in the feedstock is pectin. These
latter feedstocks undergo a rapid initial decomposition, suer extensive tissue disintegration and pose a comparatively lower level
of oating problems during prolonged operation.9,18
The leafy biomass feedstocks used remained
aoat in the digestor liquid during most of the
decomposition period. Water in the digestor
(digestor liquid) therefore functioned as a
source of bacterial inoculum, a sink for the
rapid dispersal of the initial VFA uxes and a
friction-free base over which oating biomass
moved horizontally towards the outlet facilitated largely by the process of feedstock addition and partly by its buoyancy.
This means that the daily additions of water
with feedstock are not needed in the present
approach to biogas plants. This also oers a
distinct advantage during the operation of
such plug ow biogas plants for leafy biomass
feedstocks.
3.2. Performance of eld scale 5 m3 plant with
masonry cover
This plant was operated for a period of
about 165 days with 50 kg of fresh leaf biomass/day. The daily biogas production during
this period was of the order of 1.21.3 m3.
One problem was noticed in this work. Since
the gas pressure was variable at this stage of
operation, it lead to a signicant displacement
of liquid out of the digestor whenever the
pressure was high. This could also lead to
escape of biogas to the atmosphere. The plant
was then modied with two improvements: (a)
A oating drum gas holder of 2 m3 capacity
was attached to the masonry vault to maintain
a constant gas pressure of 5 cm of water. (b)
The roof of the plant was strengthened by
another layer of brickwork and a water tank
above the vault to eliminate possible gas leakages.
The cross section of the modied plant is
shown in Fig. 2.
The plant was then operated for a period of
nearly 1.5 years by feeding fresh leaf biomass
every day. This work was started on 15
December 1992. Initially, 50 kg of biomass
was fed every day and later on the feeding

420

K. S. JAGADISH et al.

Fig. 4. Long term performance of the 5 m3 gas/day leaf biomass based plug ow biogas plant showing
specic gas yields (SGY) with various feedstock addition rates and ambient and digestor liquid (slurry)
temperatures.

rate was increased to 100 kg/day. The feedstock was invariably a mixture of green leaf
biomass from several species of plants and
trees (Table 1). The rst four plant species
listed constituted about 80% w/w of the biomass fed. The performance of the biogas plant
as measured by parameters such as gas production, yield, liquid temperature, etc. are
shown in Fig. 4. When the feed rate was
50 kg/day, the gas yield varied between 45 and
100 l/kg biomass (fresh). The high value was
noticed once in April 1993, but the average
value hovered around 50 l/kg (fresh biomass).
When the feeding rate was increased to
100 kg/day, the gas yield was lower and ranged between 30 and 45 l/kg (fresh biomass).
The reduction in gas yield with the higher
feeding rate may be attributed to two factors:
(a) The average residence time of the biomass
would now be approximately 35 day. (b) Since
the spent biomass removal is carried out at
intervals of 715 day, some of the fermenting
biomass might have been removed prematurely leading to an eectively lower feed rate.
The trial with this higher feed rate also
showed a good response to increases in slurry

temperature. It also showed that mixing of

dierent species of leaf biomass poses no problems to biogas generation. It is, however,
necessary to select species that decompose
readily. It has been found that leaves of
species like Szygium jambolana or Acacia auriculiformis, etc. do not undergo fermentative
decomposition quickly.
3.3. Performance of the experimental 0.5 m3/
day plug ow biogas plant
The gas yields and the slurry temperatures
are shown in Fig. 5. The dependence of gas
yield on slurry temperature is clear. A gas
yield of 60 l/kg green biomass (300 l/kg TS)
could be achieved by maintaining a higher
digestor liquid temperature. The exit end of
the gas holder has an inclined plate to encourage downward movement of biomass near the
exit. This facilitated the removal of spent biomass.
The metallic cover of the biogas plant was
removed a couple of times to study the biomass prole inside this plant. Figure 6 shows
the depth of the biomass along the length and
the oating and submerged components of the

Plug ow digestors

421

Fig. 5. Long term performance of the pilot scale plug ow biogas plant (0.5 m3 gas/day) showing
specic gas yields (SGY) under various feed rates and ambient and digestor (slurry) temperatures
(weekly average).

total depth. The biomass had a bulk density

of 280 kg/m3 and nearly 75% w/w of the total
biomass was oating. The variations in the
composition of the decomposing biomass feedstock was determined along the prole. The
submerged and oating portions diered in
composition with respect to the TS content.
The submerged portions lost greater quantities
of proteins and hemicellulose. These results
showed that even oating material underwent

decomposition to yield biogas. It is clear that

following the initiation of decomposition
under total submergence, the subsequent oating of biomass feedstocks does not prevent its
conversion to biogas. Submergence throughout
the decomposition period is hence not necessary. The minimum submergence period was
determined by placing biomass packed in
nylon mesh for various periods under the fermentor liquid. The results showed that an in-

Fig. 6. Prole of decomposing biomass feedstock in an experimental plug ow biogas plant.

K. S. JAGADISH et al.

422

itial submergence for a period of <5 day is

adequate to sustain subsequent biogas generation
even
under
oating
condition.
Submergence over a period of less than 3 days
led to VFA accumulation and slowing of biogas generation with a few biomass species. It
is therefore necessary to design biogas plants
in which freshly fed biomass feedstock remains
submerged within digestor liquid for this
period.
It was also felt that the bulk density of the
biomass could be increased by mixing it with
clayey soil before compaction. Accordingly,
biomass and soil were mixed in two proportions (4:1 and 1:1) and then compressed in
a toggle press. The bulk density of the clay
biomass briquette increased from <200 to 800
and 1050 kg/m3, respectively. This technique
shows a simple way of reducing or eliminating
the oating characteristics of biomass. This
process also increases the biomass held in the
digestor and enhances the digestor capacity.
Although this technique has been tried earlier,34,35 there is very little eld experience.

4. CONCLUDING REMARKS

The two plug ow biogas digestors for leaf

biomass feedstocks, which were studied extensively over a 2 year period led to the following
conclusions.
1. A length to width ratio of 2.02.5 appears
to be satisfactory for plug ow leaf biomass
biogas plants.
2. A feedstock containing a mixture of fresh
leaves of dierent plant species can be used
successfully for biogas generation.
3. There are, however, plants and trees whose
leaves do not readily decompose. There is a
need to catalogue such plant biomass.
4. Submergence of fresh leaf biomass under
water for 35 day is useful as an aid to decomposition.
5. Precompression of such biomass with or
without clay admixture is helpful in enhancing the density of the biomass and improving space economy in a biogas plant.

AcknowledgementsThe authors gratefully acknowledge

nancial support of the Ministry of Non-conventional
Sources of Energy (MNES), New Delhi, for carrying out
these studies.

REFERENCES
1. Khandelwal, K. C., Biogas technology development
and implementation strategiesIndian Experience. In
Proc. Int. Conf. Biogas Technol. Implementation
Strategies, ed. BORDA, Bremen. UNDARP, Pune,
India, 1990, pp. 6692.
2. Moulik, T. K., Diusion of biogas technologiespolicies and strategies. Proc. Int. Conf. Biogas Technol.
Implementation Strategies, ed. BORDA, Bremen.
UNDARP, Pune, India, 1990, pp. 93126.
3. Ravindranath, N. H. and Hall, D. O., In Biomass,
Energy and EnvironmentA Developing Country
Perspective from India. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford,
1995.
4. Jagadish, K. S., Land, water and biomass energy in
India. In Workshop on Watershed Development and
Biomass Energy, Bangalore, 2627 Feb. 1994.
ASTRA, Indian Institute of Science, 1994.
5. Jagadish, K. S., Biogas from leaf biomass: prospects
and problems. In Proc. Int. Conf. Biomass Energy
Systems, eds P. Venkata Ramana and S. N. Srinivas.
Tata Energy Research Institute, New Delhi, 1997, pp.
361366.
6. Meier, U. (1982). In Biogas from Water Hyacinth.
Swiss Centre for Appropriate Technology (SKAT),
Univ. of St Gall, Switzerland.
7. Gunaseelan, V. N., Parthenium as an additive with
cattle manure in biogas production, Biol. Wastes,
1987, 21, 195202.
8. Gunaseelan, V. N., Eect of inoculum/substrate ratio
and pretreatments on methane yield from Parthenium,
Biomass Bioenergy, 1995, 8, 3944.
9. Sarada, M. S. and Nand, K., Start-up of anaerobic
digestion of tomato processing wastes for methane,
Biol. Wastes, 1989, 30, 231238.
10. Sharma, S. K., Mishra, I. M., Saini, J. S. and Sharma,
M. P., Biogas from biomass, Ind. J. Rural Technol.,
1989, 1, 117.
11. Tong, X., Smith, L. H. and McCarty, P. L., Methane
fermentation of selected lignocellulosic materials,
Biomass, 1989, 21, 239255.
12. Chanakya, H. N., Borgaonkar, S., Rajan, M. G. C.
and Wahi, M., Two phase fermentation of whole leaf
biomass to biogas, Biomass Bioenergy, 1993, 5, 359
367.
13. Kalia, V. C. and Joshi, A. P., Conversion of waste
biomass (pea-shells) into hydrogen and methane
through anaerobic digestion, Bioresource Technol.,
1995, 53, 165168.
14. Srivastava, R. C., Pillai, K. R., Singh, H. D. and
Raghavan, K. V., Studies on design of anaerobic
digester for water hyacinth. Proc. III Int. Conf. Water
Hyacinth, Feb. 1984, Regional Research Laboratory,
Hyderabad, India, 1985, pp. 566-592.
15. Balasubramanya, R. H., Khandeparkar, V. G. and
Sundaram, V., Large scale digestion of willow dust in
batch digestors, Biol. Wastes, 1988, 25, 2535.
16. Ten Brummeler, E. and Koster, I. W., Enhancement
of dry anaerobic batch digestion of municipal solid
waste by an aerobic pretreatment step, Biol. Wastes,
1990, 31, 199210.
17. Sohani, G. G. and Joshi, A. L., Field trials on utilization of agricultural wastes for biogas production.
Bharatiya Agro Industries Foundation, Urulikanchan,
Maharashtra, India, 1987.
18. Mhapuskar, S. V., Biogas from vegetable market
waste at APMC, Pune, Bioenergy News, 1997, 1(3),
1619.
19. van Buren, A., In Chinese Biogas Manual.
Intermediate Technology Development Group Press,
London, 1979.

Plug ow digestors
20. Kurup, G. R., Development of a multifed biogas generator. Proc. III Kerala Science Congress, Kozhikode,
Kerala, 28th Feb3rd March 1991. Dept Sci. Technol.
and Environment, Govt of Kerala, India, 1991, pp.
196197.
21. Boopathy, R. and Mariappan, M., Coee pulp a potential source of energy, J. Coee Res., 1984, 14, 108
116.
22. Rahman, M. M., Chowdhury, A. P., Khan, M. R.
and Islam, A., Microbial production of biogas from
organic wastes, J. Ferment. Technol., 1986, 64, 4550.
23. Llabres, V. P. and Alvarez, M., Inuence of temperature, buer composition and straw particle length on
anaerobic digestion of wheat strawpig manure mix,
Resources Conserv., 1988, 1, 2737.
24. Molnar, L. and Bartha, I., Solid state methane generation, Mircen J. Appl. Microbiol. Biotechnol., 1988, 4,
481490.
25. Georgacakis, D. and Dalis, D., Controlled anaerobic
digestion of settled olive-oil wastewater, Bioresource
Technol., 1993, 46, 221226.
26. Meher, K. K., Panchwagh, A. M., Rangrass, S. and
Gollakota, K. G., Biomethanation of tobacco waste,
Environmental Pollution, 1995, 90, 199202.
27. Deivanai, K. and Bai, R. K., Batch biomethanation of
banana trash and coir pith, Bioresource Technol.,
1995, 52, 9394.

423

28. Lingappa, B. T. and Lingappa, Y., Characteristics of

a multi-purpose methane generator. In Bioenergy 84,
Vol. IIIBiomass Conversion, eds H. Egneus and A.
Ellegard. Elsevier, Oxford, 1985, pp. 442449.
29. Spendlin, H.-H., In Untersuchungen zur fruhzeirigen
Initiierung der Methanbildung be festen Abfallstoen.
Economica Verlag GmbH, Bonn, 1991.
30. Chanakya, H. N., Ganguli, N. K., Anand, V. and
Jagadish, K. S., Performance characteristics of a solidphase biogas fermentor, Energy for Sustainable
Development, 1995, 1, 4346.
31. Chanakya, H. N. and Jagadish, K. S., Small scale biogasication of sorted municipal solid wastes,
Bioenergy News, 1997, 1(3), 1115.
32. Gorecki, J., Bortone, G. and Tilche, A., Anaerobic
treatment of the centrifuged solid fraction of piggery
wastewater in an inclined plug ow reactor, Water
Science and Technology, 1993, 28, 107114.
33. Jagadish, K. S., Chanakya, H. N. and Anand, V., In
Solid Phase Fermentation of Water Hyacinth and
Biomass to Biogas. Technical Report. ASTRA, Indian
Institute of Science, Bangalore, 1989.
34. Bagnall, L. O., Bulk mechanical properties of water
hyacinth, J. Aquat. Pl. Manag., 1984, 20, 4954.
35. Simlot, M. M., Modication of water hyacinth, Rur.
Technol. J., 1985, 2, 1216.