[Stoves] Dung as fertilizer and fuel

[jason marshall]

I remember reading at some point about a research project to determine
if mixing cow manure with waste cellulose could increase methane
production.  Unfortunately I'm unable to find a citation now.  It
would have been sometime in the last few years.

All I can recall now was that yes, it did improve output, but I can't
tell you what sort of cellulose source they used (sawdust? straw?
wastepaper?), nor the ratio (1:1 seems to ring a bell, but I don't
know if that's by volume or by mass).

The theory went that the manure provides the microbial action, but
most of the energy comes from the 'new' material.

I wonder, for instance, what would happen if one put manure and
bagasse in a digester.

-Jason

On 8/29/06, adkarve <adkarve at pn2.vsnl.net.in> wrote:
> The sugar industry in India uses bagasse containing about 50% moisture as
> fuel, to produce steam for generating electricity. Dry dung cakes,
> especially those that contain straw and dry leaves as additives, have
> definitely a higher calorific value than bagasse with 50% moisture. The
> western part of Maharashtra State in India, has a well established sugar
> industry as well as a well established dairy industry. The dung available
> with the dairies can be mechanically briquetted, after squeezing the water
> out of the dung by means of a filter press. This process would yield the so
> called dung tea, that can go back to the field. Briquettes made from the
> dung solids can be burned in the boilers of the sugar factory to generate
> electricity or sold to anybody who may want to use them as fuel. Making
> biogas from dung is a wasteful process. One gets only 25 per cent of the
> original calorific value, if the dung is converted into methane.
> Yours
> A.D.Karve
>
>
>
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-- 
- Jason