Study of Biogas Production from Bagasse and Filter Cake

Bagasse, an abundantly available crop residue has a high potential that remains unutilized or burnt as fuel. The complex structure of bagasse poses recalcitrance to its sustainable utilization through anaerobic digestion. So, to enhance biogas production 2% NaOH pretreatment of bagasse and filter cake were carried out in this study at ambient temperature for a day. Biogas production was observed for 35 days of retention period at mesophilic temperature in batch process mode. Proximate analysis and analytical techniques such as Fourier Transform Infra-Red (FTIR) were used to characterize the residues and observe the effect on chemical structures of pretreated bagasse and filter cake respectively. Raw Filter Cake was found to produce the highest biogas production.