Agro industrial wastes and aquatic weed echhornia as a suplementory substrate for biogas production

Dependence of different countries on fossil fuels, leads to increasing the cost of oil in world market. To overcomes this problem the countries have to give extra emphasis on indigenous and renewable energy sources. The present paper deals with the study of bio energy production mainly biogas by using Aquatic weed Echhornia and wastes from Agro- based industries like Distillery, Sugar industry, Dairy and Farm house waste. The pretreated and untreated Echhornia biomass alone and in combination with waste was used, there was marked increase in biogas production in weed and waste combination. Experiments were carried out in 1-L digester flasks; measurement of biogas was done by water displacement method. The biogas production was recorded up to 30 days. In general Distillery waste and pretreated Echhornia showed highest 616.33 mL/day biogas production. The use of Echhornia and Distillery waste can be made to supplement the conventional substrate like dung in urban and rural areas to augment the biogas production.