If you have been wanting to power your home and need to use flammable gas to do this, there are some easy ways to make Biogas at home. This is an ancient form of power that was used in ancient times to light lanterns and other items that created illumination before electric lighting.
There are still many homes in the world that are run on Biogas and you will find that you might have been missing out on a really simple source of light and power by not using this easy-to-make product for your own needs.
If you are living off the grid or need any easy means to create a power source for your home, Biogas might be the perfect solution for your needs. You will not need anything exotic to take care of this need and you will find that common items can generate big results when you set up the system correctly. Biogas is one of the easiest ways to create a source of power for your home without needing to use expensive methods to create it.
What is Biogas?
This is a renewable fuel that is made by the breakdown of organic matter like food scraps and animal wastes. This is a cheap way to fuel some vehicles and it can be used to fuel heating and electricity generators. This is a common way to fuel homes and farms in many countries around the world and is not utilized frequently in the US.
You can actually create your own renewable Biogas at home by creating a simple Biogas system that will generate enough fuel for all of your needs and might even make an excess that you can let other people in your off-the-grid community use. This is an antique method of creating fuel that has been well documented even in ancient times and it still offers a viable means to power and light homes and other places all around the world.
An additional benefit of this kind of system is that the products involved are not volatile in the same way that fossil fuels are and you will be able to make your own Biogas with ease. You would not be able to access fossil fuels with ease in the same way and this makes Biogas a really attractive option for those living off the grid.
Materials You Will Need to Make Biogas at Home
You will need to collect a few key items to make Biogas at home. These are easily sourced items and you will not have to look all over to get them. Make sure that you get quality parts for your Biogas system so that you do not end up replacing parts after only a short time using the system.
- Inlet pipe
- Digester tank
- Slurry outlet Pipe
- Gas outlet pipe
- Adhesive glue that is waterproof
- Vegetable matter like a head of lettuce or dried rice. Some people also use cattle manure or grass.
The digester tank can often be made from a scrap barrel or other large container that is made of durable material. You can heat a piece of metal to melt holes into the sides of the tank or you can drill them out if you have access to the right tools to do this.
You will also need something like a paint bucket for your gas holding tank. It will also need to have a hole melted or drilled into the center of the bottom so you will need to use your heating or drilling method again.
Steps to Make Biogas
1. Make an Airtight Environment
You will want to use your barrel or another durable container for the anaerobic digester. It can be tough to add new material to the digester without letting new oxygen into the system so you will want to make the traditional “teapot” system to allow for adding material without letting oxygen into the system.
You will either need to use a metal pipe to melt round inlet and outlet holes into the barrel or you can use a drill to create the holes. Glue the inlet and outlet pipe with a waterproof adhesive.
2. Add Material
You will need both biomaterial like manure or vegetation matter and some water to be in your tank to create the Biogas. You will want to make sure that you have the ratio of 10% of air space, 50% water, and 40% material to be sure that you are creating the right environment to create your Biogas.
To create the reservoir for the gas, you will need something like a large paint bucket. This will need a pipe fitted into the center of it and glued using the method that you used for the pipe insertion in the large barrel.
3. Put the Holding Tank Inside the Barrel
You will now place the gas holder inside the digester tank on top of the slurry. You will want to open the valve when you do this step. You will also want to be sure that the spigot is pointed upwards and can be threaded out the hole in the lid for the barrel or bin.
Your first batch of gas won’t burn since it will have carbon dioxide in it. You will need to use the second batch and subsequent batches after for burning purposes. These will be free of carbon dioxide and will burn perfectly.
4. Temperature Considerations
The temperature in the most general sense is like the power that you are applying to the process of creation. The more heat you apply, the more gas you will create. However, there is a ceiling to the whole process which happens when it gets too hot for the bacteria in your archaea and they decompose into more fragile states that do not make gas any longer.
Ideally speaking, you will want to be sure that you keep your archaea at about 50-85 degrees. This means that the breakdown process will take about 30 days. This is the most stable way to manage the system and it will make sure that your system can sustain itself even when temperatures fluctuate during high and low external temperature periods as well as times of inactivity.
5. Ensure Neutral pH
This is an important part of the process that aids in anaerobic digestion and you need to be sure that you take the pH at the inlet. You will need to see 5.5 for ideal conditions within the archaea. If your archaea has soured, you will not get gas from it anymore. This is easiest when you use cattle waste and that is the most common form of fuel for this process.
Checking your Biogas pH is really easy to do. You will just want to have pH test strips or you can get a special probe that is made to sit in the slurry and give you a reading of the pH that is present inside the digester.
How Much Biogas Can You Make?
The size of your system and the waste that you are using to fill it and create gas can impact the amount of Biogas that you can make. You will find that many digesters will make about 20 m3 per ton of waste and it will usually take about 10-15 days to generate your first batch of Biogas when you set up your system.
Larger systems can make as much as 800 m3 per ton which is a lot of Biogas! You might not need to generate high volumes of this product but if you do need to, you will want to use animal waste as well as a larger system to collect all of the Biogas that you need for your own use.
Biogas is an Untapped Resource in Many Places
This is a renewable power source that many people do not even know that they can generate on their own property. There is nothing expensive about setting up one of these systems and you will love that you can undertake this project and only have to wait for about two weeks to have a renewable fuel source that you did not have access to before. Using items that you have in your own home, you can create the freedom to love off the grid that many people enjoy all around the world.
One of the other really powerful benefits of using this kind of fuel source is that Biogas is renewable and does not require any kind of exotic materials that you will not have easy access to. Even rice can create Biogas, which makes this one of the most sustainable and readily accessed means to generate power. Imagine having all the fuel that you need right at your fingertips and for a fraction of the cost of fossil fuels!
If you are ready to make the switch to a renewable power source, this is one of the best choices that you can make.