IMPROVEMENT OF THE THERMAL EFFICIENCY OF BIOGAS PRODUCED FROM NEEM LITTER
Y. M. Ngulde and Yerima I.
Department of Biological Sciences
University of Maiduguri, Nigeria
E-mail: yunusanguldemaina@yahoo.com
ABSTRACT
Cooking gas has today become highly essential but unaffordable commodity in many homes institutions and industries in Nigeria. Efforts are being made towards sourcing for alternative cheaper and more affordable energy sources especially those that impact less pressure on our already fragile environment one of which is biogas. The constituents of cumulative biogas generated from neemlitter was determined by passing the biogas through a gas chromatography and the result revealed the percentage ratio of the elements that constitutes the composition of neemlitter biogas as methane (CH4) – 54%, carbon dioxide (CO2) – 38.5%, oxygen (O2) – 0.05%, Ammonia (NH4) – 1, Hydrogen (H2) – 0.6%, Hydrogen sulphide (H2S) – 0.8%, Nitrogen (N2) – 3.35%, Water vapour, (H2O) – 0.8% and others 0.17%. The study also subjected the cumulative biogas to refinement processes by passing the biogas through chambers of acidified potassium permanganate solution (Kmno4), concentrated potassium hydroxide solution (KOH) and hygroscopic substance (CaO) with the view to find out the possible variations of the values of each elements of the biogas after the refinement processes and the results showed that there were variations which were noted as follows methane (CH4) – 58.08% carbon dioxide (CO2) – 30.2%, oxygen (O2) – 0.02%, Water vapour, (H2O) – 0.3% and others 0.25%. The unrefined and refined biogas were subjected to heating processes to determined their thermal efficiency and the result revealed that there was an increase in temperature in the heating process carried out by the refined biogas while no increase in temperature was noted by the unrefined biogas. The volume of gases utilized in the heating process also varies in both cases.