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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

On-farm anaerobic digester and fuel alcohol plant

Book ·
OSTI ID:6498419

An anaerobic digestion system was constructed and set up on a southern Illinois farm. The anaerobic digestion system was designed to be coupled with a fuel alcohol plant constructed by the farm family as part of an integrated farm energy system. The digester heating can be done using waste hot water from the alcohol plant and biogas from the digester can be used as fuel for the alcohol production. The anaerobic digestion system is made up of the following components. A hog finishing house, which already had a slotted floor and manure pit beneath it, was fitted with a system to scrape the manure into a feed slurry pit constructed at one end of the hog house. A solids handling pump feeds the manure from the feed slurry pit into the digester, a 13,000 gallon tank car body which has been insulated with styrofoam and buried underground. Another pump transfers effluent (digested manure) from the digester to a 150,000 gallon storage tank. The digested manure is then applied to cropland at appropriate times of the year. The digester temperature is maintained at the required level by automated hot water circulation through an internal heat exchanger. The biogas produced in the digester is pumped into a 32,000 gallon gas storage tank.

OSTI ID:
6498419
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English