The present investigation was undertaken with the aim of assessing the impact of retention time period on the biomethanation of cattle dung supplemented with different ratios of poultry waste under semi-continuous solid state fermentation. Cattle dung and poultry waste were mixed in different ratios viz.100% Cattle dung (CD), 90% CD +10% Poultry Waste (PW), 80% CD + 20% PW and 70% CW + 30% PW at approximately 17 % Total Solid concentration in 5L aspirator bottles. The digesters were subjected to semi continuous mode of anaerobic digestion and operated for three different retention time (RT) periods of 10 days, 20 days and 30 days. The maximum amount of biogas production was observed in all the digesters during RT of 30 days and the least during the RT of 10 days. Also, the biogas production was maximum in the digester no. 4 (70% CD + 30% PW) and minimum in the digester containing only cattle dung during all the retention time periods. Similar trend was observed in case of enrichment of Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium also with maximum enrichment occurring during RT of 30 days, followed by RT of 20 days and minimum during RT of 10 days.
Biogas, Solid-state, Cattle dung, Poultry waste, Semi-continuous.
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