DETERMINATION OF METHANE CONTENT BY MEASUREMENTS OF FLAME TEMPERATURE AND VOLTAGE FROM BIOGAS BURNER

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Assist. Prof. of Agric. Eng. Dept., Fac. of Agric., Suez-Canal Univ., 41522 Ismailia, Egypt.

Abstract

This study presents the results of an experimental investigation of the flame temperature and voltage of biogas burner as a method to determine methane content in biogas. An experimental prototype has been developed to find the quality of biogas, which produced from mixture of cattle dung and chicken manure 50:50 %, total solid (7.8 % TS) by bench-scale continues anaerobic digester (horizontal type) with 17 liters digestion volume and 25 days hydraulic retention time (HRT). The hydraulic retention time was replicated two times under 38 °C mesophilic region in order to reach the steady state biogas product.
The obtained results showed that, the minimum flame temperature and voltage were 460 °C and 38 mV, respectively at 54.5 % methane. Meanwhile, the maximum flame temperature and voltage were 631 °C and 42.6 mV, respectively at 68.1 % methane. The average velocity of biogas passing through the port of burner (3 mm diameter) was 2.1 m/s and the average biogas pressure in gasholder was 996 mbar.The biogas flow rate through the port of burner was 0.9 liter/min and laminar, flow type.
The variation of flame temperature and voltage of the sample of biogas collected from a bench-scale anaerobic digester every day was also studied to find the change in quality throughout the second replicate hydraulic retention time. The obtained data indicated that, there was a proportional relationship between flame temperature, voltage and methane percentage in the biogas.

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References

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Misr Journal of Agricultural Engineering
Volume 26, Issue 1
January 2009
Pages 498-513

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