Gassing Station and Anaerobic Batch Reactor for Methane Production

Abstract

Methane gas can be produced by biological treatment of organic waste and wastewater by microbial communities. This is done by converting chemical energy in the waste into chemical energy in the form of methane. Unfortunately, methane-producing communities are complex and the biological processes are largely undefined. Specific methanogenic activity (SMA) tests are used to evaluate the viability of methane-producing microbial communities. However, more research is necessary in understanding how to optimize productivity of the communities that carry out methanogenesis. One of the primary factors affecting methane production is the ratio of gases in the bottles containing these microbial communities. In this project, our team designed a robust SMA system capable of high accuracy and high throughput.