Biogas Production.

Biogas is produced by the anaerobic digestion of biomass in a Biogas digester. It is a natural process and is quite easy to control and manipulate it to your advantage.

The first thing you will need to produce biogas is the digester. 

Here is a quick plan for a Biogas Digester that you can use to produce biogas.

Build a test digester first and then once you have success you can make a bigger digester with the exact same plan. On a small scale any drum that can seal airtight will work. Some people also use heavy duty plastic bags. In short a biogas digester is just a tank or container with an inlet for the biomass and an outlet for the Biogas.

Once you have the Digester ready and airtight you can add your biomass. This first biomass/water mixture or the starter material will have to be anaerobically digested all ready. You will need the bacteria in that to multiply and do the digestion of the material that you will add later. If you add fresh material to start with you will not get anaerobic digestion of the material and your plant will not work. When you have added the starter material you can slowly add more slurry that has been allowed to digest aerobically for a couple of days. Be careful not to add too much at a time or any chemicals as this will kill the bacteria that is doing the digestion.

The difference between Anaerobic and Aerobic Digestion?

Anaerobic digestion is the process in which bacteria break down biodegradable material in the absence of oxygen.

Aerobic Digestion is the process in which bacteria and other micro organisms break down biodegradable material in the presence of oxygen.

The time it takes to get your digester to produce biogas will depend on the material that you add. Sugars for example can be broken down by the bacteria quite easily but more complex material will take longer to degrade.

Once you have a healthy biogas plant up and running you can add fresh slurry and remove spend material so that you will have a constant production of Biogas.