Characterization and Analysis of Fish Waste as Feedstock for Biogas Production

Abstract

Fish waste (FW) is biodegradable waste that remains underutilized and causes a problem to the environment since the existing disposal techniques result in health risks and environmental pollution. FW has significant potential for producing biogas that decrease the reliance on fossil fuels because it contains easily biodegradable organic matter. The physicochemical analysis of the fish waste such as moisture content (MC) of 61.78 %, volatile solids (VS) of 93.94 %, total solids (TS) of 38.21 %, ash content (AC) of 0.52%, total organic carbon (TOC) of 54.2%, total kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN) of 9.2% and carbon to nitrogen (C/N) ratio of 5.89 % were considered and analyzed in this research. In addition, the methane potential was determined and obtained using gas detector. The results shown that the methane (CH4) content in fish waste was 50.12 % which was the potential feedstock of fish waste for biogas production. Nevertheless, the VS of fish waste was high which was good for this feedstock to be easily digested as the sign of producing biogas and demonstrates 99.9985% of performance rate. Finally, the FW had a lower C/N ratio compared to other biogas production waste. Future work needs to consider co-digestion with higher C/N ratio feedstocks.