[Digestion] Woody Biomass digestion via compost

[Art Krenzel]

Dr. Karve,

How were the sugar cane tops removed from the towers after the digestion 
period?  Most of the pictures I have seen of brick and cement towers are 
flat bottomed and have no means of using gravity or other mechanism to 
easily discharge the digested materials.  I know that labor is less 
expensive in India however the removal must have been done from the outside 
at the top since the air inside the tower was not breathable (unless they 
continuously flushed it with fresh air).

Interesting use of fermentation/acetate formation with anaerobic digestion!

Art Krenzel


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "adkarve" <adkarve at pn2.vsnl.net.in>
To: <digestion at listserv.repp.org>
Sent: Saturday, December 02, 2006 9:57 PM
Subject: Re: [Digestion] Woody Biomass digestion via compost


> About thirty years ago, I had visited an Institute by the name of National
> Sugar Institute in the city of Kanpur (Uttar Pradesh, India), where I saw 
> a
> two phase fermentation technique. When I visited this Institute, I was 
> more
> interested in sugar than in methane, and it is likely that I missed
> something or understood the process wrongly. The fermenters consisted of
> several large brick-and-cement towers, which were operated one after the
> other to give continuous supply of methane. Each tower was first filled 
> with
> sugarcane tops (green leafy portion at the apex of the sugarcane stem) and
> air was blown through this biomass using electrically driven blowers
> situated at the bottom of the tower. After a few weeks, the temperature of
> the biomass rose. When it reached 40 degrees Celsius, the air supply was
> stopped and the air vents were closed, so that the fermentation switched
> over to the anaerobic phase. Methane produced in this system was used in 
> the
> laboratories of the Institute. After the methane production stopped, the
> decomposed material served as manure in the farm of the Institute.
> A.D.Karve
>
>
>
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