Digestate from anaerobic reactor as a potential fertilizer
Journal Title: Carbon - Science and Technology - Year 2015, Vol 7, Issue 2
Abstract
Biogas is one of the most promising sources of renewable energy in today’s world. Liquid and the solid digestates are the byproducts of anaerobic digestion of various kinds of wastes to produce biogas. Disposal of liquid digestate is one of the major issues faced by the existing biogas plant facilities worldwide. In this study, liquid digestate from anaerobic digestion of food waste is examined for its potential as an organic fertilizer for food crops. Coconut peat is used as a matrix to hold the digestate and also to grow plants in a soil-less culture. Three plants from the family- Solanaceae were chosen viz. tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), green chilli (Capsicum annum) and eggplant or brinjal (Solanum melogena). The plants were grown in trays as control (coconut peat and water) and slurry (coconut peat and digestate). Digestate sets showed an increase in growth parameters as compared to control by a factor of 60.8 % in tomato, 48.6 % in chilli and 97 % in brinjal for plant height, 86 % in tomato, 82.4 % in chilli and 63.8 % in brinjal for leaf length, and 66.3 % in tomato, 87.3 % in chilli for number of leaves. The final yield for chilli plants was 2.5 fruits/plant in 70 days while for brinjal it was 2 fruits/plant after 74 days of growth.
Authors and Affiliations
Navodita Bhatnagar and Srikanth Mutnuri
Keywords
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