Rice Straw and its Potential in Biogas Production

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Climate change has been one of the major problems of this generation and is mainly caused by deforestation, farming, and fossil fuel consumption. Since farming is the major source of income and fossil fuel such as coal and oil is the major source of energy, green house emission from these activities is inevitable. One of the solutions for this is the renewable energy and among other technologies, biogas is the most cost-efficient. In biogas, feedstock is usually made of agricultural wastes and since Saguday is an agricultural land, the wastes such as rice straw and animal manure can be utilized. This study determined which treatment between the pig dung only and combined pig dung and rice straw can produce gas faster and has a better yield in volume and pressure.

METHODS

True experimental design under the experimental research was used in the study. Complete Randomized Design (CRD) was used in experimental layout. It was conducted at Saguday National High School from November of 2018 to January of 2019. Rice straw and pig dung were selected among other agricultural wastes. The control treatment was composed of pig dung only while the experimental treatment was composed of combined dung and rice straw, both replicated thrice. The data was gathered after five weeks of observation using a weekly observational checklist and a manometer. After which, the data was interpreted using t-Test.

RESULTS

The treatment with rice straw produced more gas thanthe control; though the control treatment produced gas faster. The experimental treatment has a mean of 28.67 psi for the pressure and 8.6 L for the volume compared to 15.67 psi and 4.9 L of the control treatment. This implies that the rice straw can improve the gas yield of a usual feedstock. Thus, the experimental treatment is better than the control in terms of volume and pressure. The study proves that there is a significant difference between the treatments in both pressure and volume yield.

DISCUSSIONS

The rice straw was proven to have an effect in biogas production and can improve the gas yield in both pressure and volume. However, the right ratio of the rice straw, animal manure, and water should be studied further for greater gas yield. Furthermore, the digestate from the process can be utilized as fertilizer alongside with the main by product which is fuel. Instead of burning, the farmers can use the rice straw as fuel and fertilizer.