Investigation of the Co-digestion of Chicken Manure with Chicken Intestine and Its Contents and Rumen Contents

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

• A. Mirzaee ¹
• M. Soleymani ¹
• H. Bahrami ¹
• M. Norouzi Masir ²

¹ Department of Biosystems Engineering, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Ahvaz, Iran

² Department of Soil Science, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Ahvaz, Iran

https://doi.org/10.22067/jam.v12i2.82016

Abstract

Introduction: Almost 18 percent of emitted greenhouse gasses in Iran come from livestock industries, especially from manure decomposition. With the anaerobic digestion of animal wastes, in addition to eliminating its disadvantages, biogas as a clean and renewable energy carrier is produced. In addition, the resulting sludge is a more healthy and nutritious fertilizer for use in agriculture. One of the challenges of the bio-gas industry is to increase gas production efficiency. Various approaches are proposed to enhance manure digestion efficiency and increase biogas production, which can be mentioned below: Changing operating parameters such as temperature, hydraulic retention time (HRT), and particle size of the substrate; adding some effective additives; returning the resulting sludge into the digestion process and using bio-filters. Therefore in this study, in order to increase biogas production from poultry manure, two methods (co-digestion with rumen contents, and chicken intestine and its contents, and returning the slurry into the reactor) were tested. The alkaline composition of chicken manure and its high content of ammonia makes it difficult to digest alone, and co-digestion with high-carbon organic matter improves its digestibility.
Materials and Methods: Polyethylene bottles were used as batch reactor units. In order to the possibility of gas exit, as well as taking samples of the digester, two valves were placed on the bottle cap. All digesters were placed in a hot water bath and a 700 watts electric heater and a thermostat were used respectively to supply heat and to keep the temperature constant. A U-shaped tube, connected to the reactor output pipe was used to measure the amount of produced gas. The volume of water removed from the tube was an indicator of produced gas. The experiment was carried out in two stages. In the first stage 21 reactors were used according to the design of the experiment which was a completely randomized design with 7 treatments (adding rumen fluid in three levels (10, 20, and 30 percent of chicken manure (weight basis), respectively), adding chicken intestines and its content in three levels (10, 20, and 30 percent of chicken manure (weight basis), respectively), and control treatment), and three replicates of each treatment. During the whole experiment period, the pH and temperature were kept constant, respectively between 7.2-8.2 and 40-35 °C (mesophilic range). In the second stage of the experiment, after all the treatments reached the end of their hydraulic retention time, the resulting sludge was filtered and the liquid part was returned to the cycle. Three treatments were also provided here (supplying 50% of the water required by sludge liquid, supplying 100% of the water required by sludge liquid, and control treatment (no liquefied sludge).
Results and Discussion: Based on the results, although the type of organic supplementation had a significant effect on the amount of biogas production, the quantity of them had not. Treatments of chicken manure + 20%, 30%, and 10% of chicken intestines resulted in the highest amount of biogas production, respectively. But these three treatments were not significantly different. Also, the co-digestion of chicken manure with chicken intestines was more effective than the co-digestion of chicken manure with rumen fluid. The return of sludge, resulted from anaerobic digestion of chicken manure, again into the cycle, in addition to enhancing the amount of produced gas, can reduce the waiting time to start gas production by at least six days (in the treatment of providing 100% of required water from returned sludge). This can lead to continuous gas production and availability of sufficient gas in commercial gas-producing units. The effect of treatments on the time of reaching the cumulative gas production index to 100 mm was significant (α= 5%) and treatment of S₁₀₀ reduced this duration by approximately 17 days (65%) and S₅₀, for approximately 16 days (74%).
 
Conclusion: According to the results of this study, co-digestion of chicken manure with cow rumen fluid did not have a significant effect on the increase of biogas production, but co-digestion of chicken manure with chicken intestine and its contents (at least by 20% of chicken manure (weight basis)) can have a significant effect on the increase in the production of biogas and can increase the amount of gas at least twice. The highest amount of gas volume was about 305 Ml.gr^-1  VS_added and came from the treatment of co-digestion of chicken manure with 20% (weight base) chicken intestine and its contents. The return of the resulting sludge of anaerobic digestion of chicken manure, back into the cycle, in addition to increasing the amount of gas, can minimize the time it takes to start to produce gas and help to produce gas continuously. Moreover, the water used for digestion will also be significantly reduced (at least 50%).

Keywords

• Anaerobic digestion
• Batch reactor
• Co-digestion
• Renewable energy

20.1001.1.22286829.1401.12.2.4.6

Open Access

©2022 The author(s). This article is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source.

References

1. Altinbas, M., and O. A. Cicek. 2019. Anaerobic co-digestion of chicken and cattle manures: Free ammonia inhibition. Energy Sources, Part A: Recovery, Utilization, and Environmental Effects 41: 1097-1109. doi:10.1080/15567036.2018.1539143.
2. Anonymous, 2010. Fertiliser Recommendations for Agricultural and Horticultural Crops (RB 209) (8^th Edn). The Stationery Office, Norwich
3. Anonymous, 2018. Agricultural Statistics in 2017, (Volume 2). (In Persian).
4. Budiyono, B., I. Nyoman Widiasa, S. Johari, and S. Sunarso. 2014. Increasing biogas production rate from cattle manure using rumen fluid as inoculums. International Journal of Science and Engineering (IJSE) 6: 31-38. doi:10.12777/ijse.6.1.31-38.
5. Callaghan, F. J., D. A. J. Wase, K. Thayanithy, and C. F. Forster. 2002. Continuous co-digestion of cattle slurry with fruit and vegetable wastes and chicken manure. Biomass and Bioenergy 22: 71-77. doi:10.1016/S0961-9534(01)00057-5.
6. Chan, G. Y. S., L. M. Chu, and M. H. Wong. 2002. Effects of leachate recirculation on biogas production from landfill. Environmental Pollution 118: 393-399.
7. Chowdhry, S. D. R., S. K. Gupta, and S. K. Banergy. 1994. Evaluation of the potentiality of tree leaves for biogas production. Indian Forester 120 (8): 720-728.
8. Frigon, J-C., and S. R. Guiot. 2010. Biomethane production from starch and lignocellulosic crops: a comparative review. Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining 4: 447-458. doi:10.1002/bbb.229.
9. Greenwood, D. J. 1990. Production or productivity: the nitrate problem. Annals of Applied Biology 117 (1): 209-231.
10. Kainthola, J., A. S. Kalamdhad, and V. V. Goud. 2019. A review on enhanced biogas production from anaerobic digestion of lignocellulosic biomass by different enhancement techniques. Process Biochemistry 84: 81-90 doi:10.1016/j.procbio.2019.05.023.
11. Li, Y., S. Y. Park, and J. Zhu. 2011. Solid-state anaerobic digestion for methane production from organic waste. Renewable and Sustainainable Energy Reviews 15: 821-826. doi:10.1016/J.RSER.2010.07.042.
12. Li, Y., R. Zhang, C. Chen, G. Liu, Y. He, and X. Liu. 2013. Biogas production from co-digestion of corn stover and chicken manure under anaerobic wet, hemi-solid, and solid state conditions. Bioresource Technology 149: 406-412. doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2013.09.091.
13. Li, Y., R. Zhang, Y. He, C. Zhang, X. Liu, C. Chen, and G. Liu. 2014. Anaerobic co-digestion of chicken manure and corn stover in batch. Bioresource Technology 156: 342-347.
14. Nicholson, F. A., B. J. Chambers, and A. W. Walker. 2004. Ammonia emissions from broiler litter and laying hen manure management systems. Biosystems Engineering 89 (2): 175-185.
15. Richard, T. 1996. The effect of lignin on biodegradability. Cornell Composting Science and Technology.
16. Roshani, A., J. Shayegan, and A. Babaee. 2012. Methane production from anaerobic co-digestion of poultry manure. Journal of Environmental Studies 38: 83-88. (In Persian).
17. Song, L., D. Li, X. Cao, Y. Tang, R. Liu, Q. Niu, and Y. Y. Li. 2019. Optimizing biomethane production of mesophilic chicken manure and sheep manure digestion: Mono-digestion and co-digestion kinetic investigation, autofluorescence analysis and microbial community assessment. Journal of Environmental Management 237: 103-113. doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2019.02.050.
18. Telliard, W. A. 2001. Method 1684: Total, fixed, and volatile solids in water, solids, and biosolids. US Environmental Protection Agency, Washington.
19. Taghinazhad, J., R. Abdi, and M. Adl. 2018. Modeling of biogas production process from cow manure with completely stirred tank reactor under semi continuously feeding. Journal of Agricultural Machinery 8: 159-169. (In Persian). doi: 22067/jam.v8i1.57758.
20. Thornton, P. K. 2010. Livestock production: recent trends, future prospects. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 365 (1554): 2853-2867.
21. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), 1991. “Nitrate Occurrence in US. Waters.” USDA. Washington, DC.
22. Yadvika, S., T. R. Sreekrishnan, S. Kohli, and V. Rana. 2004. Enhancement of biogas production from solid substrates using different techniques- A review. Bioresource Technology 95: 1-10. doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2004.02.010.