EVALUATIONS OF NEEM (AZADIRACHTA INDICA) LITTER FOR PRODUCTION OF BIOGAS IN MAIDUGURI, NORTH-EASTERN NIGERIA

¹Y.M. Ngulde and ²D. Abubakar

¹Department of Biological Sciences, University of Maiduguri, Nigeria

²Department Pre-ND, Ramat Polytechnic Maiduguri, Nigeria

E-mail: yunusanguldemaina@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT

Energy has been an important aspect of man’s needs in his daily life. As the demand for energy is excessively increasing, there has been a relentless search for the different forms of energy that will meet up with his needs. Biogas from biomass source is currently being recognized globally as renewable energy source help militate against climate change while providing a renewable cheaper source of domestic energy/lighting source. The study evaluated the availability and viability of Neem litter as a raw material for biogas production within the study area (Maiduguri city).Three study sites were delineated for this study, namely University of Maiduguri campus, Ngaranam and Umarari ward. Neem litter were collected from a quadrats with a dimension of 50 x 100 meters in replicates of three within each of the study sites over a period of three months from January to march, 2012 and was packed in sacks and weighted. The total volume of neem litter collected for University of Maiduguri campus, Ngaranam, and Umarari ward were, 10238kg, 841.9kg, and 845.3kg respectively. The study also determined the proximate composition of the Neem litter to ascertain their organic element status in mg/l and it was found that Neem litter from Unimaid campus has the higher concentration of organic elements. Furthermore, 328.2 kg of Neem litter collected from each of the study sites were fed into the biogas generating set in batches to determine the volume of cumulative biogas that could be generated for each of the study sites. The study showed that neem litter from university of Maiduguri campus produce (8.08×10^-6m³) of biogas, Ngaranam (2.89×10⁶) and Umarari (1.25×10^-6M³) respectively. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was also computed and it was found that there was a significant difference among the volume of biogas produced from the three study sites. The present investigation revealed that Neem litter is not rich enough to produced substantial amount of biogas unless it is blended with a supportive medium like animal dung’s due to its high lignin and wax content; coupled with its acidic nature which tends to suppress the viability of anaerobes within the anaerobic digester. Biogas technology can be used as an effective way of wastes treatment/management strategy in recycling organic wastes into energy.

Keywords: Neemlitter, Cumulative Biogas, energy search and organic elements.