Bioconversion of Pineapple Solid Waste under Anaerobic Condition through Biogas Production

Biogas production from pineapple peel was to preliminary study for value added to this agro-industrial solid waste. The objective of this research was to fine the optimum condition for maximum biogas production. The experiments were performed in a lab-scale of 6 liters of bioreactors at ambient temperature (approx. 30 o C). The biogas production was conducted under single stage batch processes with initial COD concentration of 20,000 mg/l. The conditions affected biogas production, such as type of microorganism, pH value, carbon to nitrogen ratio, as well as the organic loading rate, were investigated. The results showed that pineapple peel solid waste can be generated successfully to be a methane gas of an attractive concentration of 48% at 20 days by using the indigenous microorganism. The optimum pH was at 7.0 with a controlled carbon to nitrogen ratio of 20. The removal of COD was 61.49 %. In further, the result of fed batch operating system indicated that the higher amount of biogas was achieved when operated with lower organic loading rate (1 kg of organic/ m/ day).