Rapid biogas production using flocculating bacteria and membrane bioreactors

Biogas is one of the most sustainable energy sources in the world. There is a great interest to biogas in Indonesia, but a major challenge is the lack of competence about the digestion process. This project is to fund the collaboration between 3 universities including University of Borås and Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden and Gadjah Mada University in Indonesia.

Start date: 2017-01-01

End date: 2019-12-31

In addition, 4 other Indonesian universities will be identified to spread the knowledge on biogas in Indonesia, by both workshops and training in Sweden. The project leaders from these universities meet twice a year and synchronize the experimental tasks that will be carried out by one PhD student and ca 10 BSc/MSc students.

The scientific goal is to develop rapid digestion for biogas production using 2-stage fermentation, where the 2 nd stage uses flocculating bacteria or membrane bioreactors. A traditional digestion need about a month residence time, that is mainly because of extremely low growth rate of methane producing bacteria.

In this project, we reduce this retention time by separating hydrolysis and methanogenesis. The solid materials in the slurry is hydrolyzed and dissolved in water in the first reactor. Then, the solid particles and materials are separated and the liquid pass through the second reactor that is filled with flocculating bacteria or entrapped in membranes. We expect the total retention time of the digestion process to be reduced from 30 days to 5 days.

External researchers in the project:

Claes Niklasson, professor Chalmers

Ria Millati, doktor Universitas Gadjah Mada