Community scale, decentralised anaerobic digestion for energy and resource recovery

The paper describes “Community scale, decentralized anaerobic digestion for energy and resource technology” which is a joint UK-Thailand project much in line with the current aims of the Thai Government for decentralized energy generation. The use of food waste for biogas generation by the process of anaerobic digestion provides multiple benefits: decreased energy dependency, nutrient preservation and recycling, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. It is also promoted in the remoter Scotland and Wales of the UK. The aim of the project is the design and deployment of small scale digesters and their networking into remotely monitored units. Here, we are describing initial design of the reactors and some issues associated with using food waste as substrate. Based on the literature, we have also estimated the reactors performance to be 0.40-0.50 m3/kg of feedstock for biogas production.