Identification and Evaluation of Effective Bacterial Consortia for Efficient Biogas Production

Microorganisms play a vital role in processing organic matter and returning the chemical elements into active cycle. In these decomposers are effective in dismantling the complex organic matter through a sequential break down and release of energy. Biogas is one such process which occurs in the absence of oxygen and several groups of microorganism involve in degrade the organic compounds and release methane gas. To attain biogas with high methane concentration it is important to create and maintain the suitable bacterial consortia within the digester. Therefore, the present research was carried out to isolate different bacterial species from cow dung and construct four different bacterial consortia to analyze their efficiency of biogas production. The biogas production was carried out in a pilot scale batch reactor for 30 days using poultry droppings as a substrate and four different bacterial consortia in four separate digesters. Various hydrolytic enzymes, volatile fatty acids and biogas production were measured in the interval of 10 days. From the above study it was concluded that consortia 4 containing high amount methanogenic bacteria gave the highest biogas production with methane 79.45%.