SMART BIOGAS PLANT

by

SWATI GURFUDE1, SAYLI AWARI2, SNEHAL BANGADE3, SNEHAL KORDE4, KARISHMA

WASEKAR5, APURVA METKAR6
DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING,
EMAIL ID: swatigurfude10@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: Biogas plants are slowly becoming popular problems like climatic change, global warming etc. So, it is
due to the benefits associated with them like non- need to go for renewable energy sources. The biogas is
polluting and renewable energy source, reduces landfill most convenient and easy form to get energy from biomass
and cheaper. The demand for monitoring and control resources. It can be used for domestic purpose, electricity
process is increasing. Better monitoring and control production and as a fuel for vehicles.
system can improve process stability and enhance Efficiency of biogas plant depends on various parameters
process performance for better economy of the biogas such as internal temperature, PH value, type of feedstock
plants. Biogas plant monitoring system gives an overall etc. PH value has to be maintained between 6.5 to 7.5
picture of the biogas generation process. It will be used otherwise due to variation in PH the process of formation
to predict the current level of biogas so as to manage the of gas gets affected and efficiency gets reduced. Also
input accordingly. Alerts will be sent using GSM and changes in temperature will affect efficiency. Thus by using
Android to monitor the input slurry. It will help to proper electronic monitoring system these parameters can
identify upcoming instabilities in anaerobic digesters be monitored and efficiency will get improved.
before a crash happens Implementation of GSM based Out of 1.8 million biogas plants installed throughout India,
monitoring system records key parameters of a biogas 24501 plants of a state were studied and the status is
plant like temperature, gas concentration and pH value compared with other studies. It reveals that about 60%
of feed stock. The idea of online monitoring system plants are functional. With the center focusing more on
integrates a global service mobile (GSM) modem with developing alternative fuel economy, India will soon stop
an Arduino nano micro-controller and different sensors. importing petroleum products, Union Minister, Nitin
If any abnormality or emergency situation occurs Gadkari said recently Biogas is a renewable source of
system will send message to mobile phone for the quick energy, whose consumption amount to 19% (at 2011) of
access Global Energy consumption. Biomass currently accounts
for 2/3rd of renewable energy in Europe and Bio-energy
INTRODUCTION: will play a key role in achieving the ambitious targets
Day to day increase in population increases the generation approved by the renewable energy directives. Germany has
of waste in the universe. Dumping of waste without proper a leading role in Europe with almost 4000 biogas plants,
treatment leads to ecological imbalance. Accumulation of most of them on farms for co-generation.
waste also creates severe long term environmental
 PROCESS OF BIOGAS GENERATION Acetogenic stage: The third stage of anaerobic digestion is
acetogenesis. Here, simple molecules created through the
The fermentation of biomass is a four step anaerobic acidogenesis phase are further digested by acetogens to
digestion process, which is brought about by the produce largely acetic acid, as well as carbon dioxide and
complementary activities of several species of bacteria hydrogen.
The four key stages of anaerobic digestion involve Methenogenic stage: The terminal stage of anaerobic
hydrolysis, acidogenesis, acetogenesis and methanogenesis. digestion is the biological process of methanogenesis. Here,
The overall process can be described by the chemical methanogens use the intermediate products of the
reaction, where organic material such as glucose is preceding stages and convert them into methane, carbon
biochemically digested into carbon dioxide (CO2) and
dioxide, and water.
methane (CH4) by the anaerobic microorganisms.
C6H12O6→ 3CO2 + 3CH4 BIOGAS COMPOSITION: Methane (50% - 70%),Carbon
dioxide (30% - 40%) Hydrogen (5% - 10%),Nitrogen (1% -
2%) , Water vapor (0.3%) , Hydrogen sulfide (traces) .The
Biogas produced may vary in composition depending on
the feed material.

STRUCTURE OF BIOGAS PLANT:

Floating gas holder type of biogas plant

(a) Construction of the floating gas holder type plant

Hydrolysis or liquefaction stage: The floating gas holder type of biogas plant has the
In most cases, biomass is made up of large organic following chambers/ sections:
polymers. The process of breaking these chains and
dissolving the smaller molecules into solution is called 1 Digester tank:Inlet pipe opening into the inlet chamber
hydrolysis. Through hydrolysis the complex organic for introduction of slurry. Outlet pipe opening into the
molecules are broken down into simplesugars, amino acids, overflow tank for removal of spent slurry.
and fatty acids.
2 Gas holder: It is an inverted plastic tank resting above the
Acid producing stage: digester. The drum can move up and down i.e. float over
The biological process of acidogenesis results in further the digester. The gas holder has an outlet at the top which
breakdown of the remaining components by acidogenic could beconnected to gas stoves.
(fermentative) bacteria.
 GSM MODEM

Fig. Biogas plant prototype(floating dome) The Global System for Mobile (GSM) communication is
the Second Generation of mobile technology. Although the
PROPOSED SCHEME: world is moving towards Third and Fourth generation but
GSM has been the most successful and widespread
The biogas generation plant integrated with GSM based technology in the communication sector. GSM technology
monitoring system is as shown in following paved a new way for mobile communication. In our design
we have interfaced GSM Module with a PIC
microcontroller, when there is detection of 80% of biogas
in the reactor the GSM module will send SMS to the user
by intimating gas has been detected and also it will display
on LCD. A line converter MAX232 is employed to convert
the RS232 logic data of GSM Module to TTL logic so that
it can be processed by the microcontroller.

To Send a SMS using GSM Modem :

• Enter “AT” in the HyperTerminal, the board will echo

“OK” if everything is properly setup

• To send SMS send the command -> AT+CMGF=1

• Modem will acknowledge by sending the text -> OK

• Then send -> AT+CMGS="NUM" Where NUM is the

number you want to send the SMS to.

• Modem will acknowledge by sending the text - TYPE

THE MESSAGE>
Canteen waste(Tea powder) from daily uses is mixed with
cow dung and water with proper proportion and fed to the • Enter the message and then press ctrl+z to send SMS.
digester daily. Ex: 250gram cow dung + 250gram Tea
powder + 0.5lit water. Feedstock (Cow dung and kitchen
waste) and water should be in 1:1 proportion. After period
of 30-45 days biogas production starts. The produced
biogas after the process of fermentation is stored in the SENSORS & CONTROLLER
cylinder. The temperature and methane gas concentration
of the system are monitored using sensors and displayed by Biogas monitoring involves the monitoring of its various
the display unit. parameters. The various parameters that we are going to
monitor are temperature and methane concentration.

1) TEMPERATURE SENSOR:
This research uses LM35D as a temperature sensor. The
It gives direct information about changes in parameters. LM35 series are precision integrated-circuit temperature
The proposed system will send message on operator’s cell devices with an output voltage linearly proportional to the
phone to get quick access. A simple scheme employing Centigrade temperature. The device is used with single
four sensors which are methane gas sensor and temperature power supplies or with plus and minus supplies. Input
sensor has been planned for monitoring of biogas plant. operating voltage range is from 4V to 30V and it draws
only 60µA current from the supply. It has very low self
The analog data from sensors is transferred to Arduino heating of less than 0.1C in still air.
controller and further data is processed by Arduino
according to program. Such manipulated data then send on
operator’s mobile via GSM modem.
 and simple drive circuit &etc. It is widely used in domestic
gas leakage alarm, industrial flammable gas alarm and
portable gas detector.

The LM35 device is rated to operate over -55C to 150C

temperature range. The only functional mode of the LM35
is that it has an analog output directly proportional to
temperature.

 Design Requirements:

Table 1. Design Parameters

PARAMETER VALUE

Accuracy at 25°C ±0.5°C

Accuracy from –55 ±1°C

°C to 150°C

Temperature Slope 10 mV/°C

Fig1. Minimum Supply voltage Vs Temperature Figure. Circuit of MQ-4

2) FLAMMABLE GAS SENSOR:

This research uses MQ-4 Semiconductor sensor as a gas

sensor. The enveloped MQ-4 have 6-pin, 4 of them are
used to fetch signals, and other 2 are used for proving
heating current. MQ-4 gas sensor has high sensitivity to
methane, also has anti-interference to alcohol and other
gases. It has the advantages such as long lifespan, low cost
 contain memory, ADC (Analog-toDigital Converter), DAC
(Digital-to-Analog Converter), parallel I/O interface, serial
I/O interface, timers and counters. The microprocessor
responses to arithmetically operate the binary data which
likes a CPU in a computer. However, its speed, general
purpose registers, memory addressing and instruction set
are very low compared with a CPU.

Technical Data

Microcontroller can be processed by pre-write instruction

without computer or any other devices. The ADC and DAC
can do convert signal between analog signal and digital.
The analog signal usually is a voltage number in a range
such as a temperature sensor. It can convert the temperature
value to a specific voltage value. Then, this voltage value
can be converted to digital value as binary via ADC. In
addition, the parallel I/O interface and serial I/O interface
supply one or more ports for connecting sensors on the
microcontroller.

CONCLUSION
Household digesters represent a boon for urban and rural
people to meet their energy needs. These digesters help in
two ways: one is to reduce waste and the other is to provide
valuable energy. Although they have been used for many
years, modernization is needed to overcome the drawbacks
Fig2. Sensitivity Characteristics in the long run system. Hence we proposed system, the new
modernized model with higher efficiency, with compact
size of reactor and low cost of biogas production. The
Fig.2 shows the typical sensitivity characteristics of the future work to proposed system, in the present energy
MQ-4, ordinate means resistance ratio of the sensor (Rs/Ro) crisis, after biogas utilization it can be upgrade to power
, abscissa is concentration of gases. Rs means resistance in generation applications such as lightening & electricity.
The proposed system is partially automated hence we can
different gases, Ro means resistance of sensor in 1000ppm
build fully automated system by using electronic valve and
Methane. All tests are under standard test conditions.
suitable motors.

ARDIUNO
REFERENCES
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Microcontroller.”
[3] Sunil MP, Ashik Narayan, Vidyasagar Bhat, Vinay S, (2013),
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3075, Volume-3, Issue-3
[4] Suruchi Dedgaonkar*, Ankita Mohire, Ajinkya Jadhav, Sonali
Pawar and Rushikesh Bane, “Biogas Monitoring System for
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