Bioresource Technology Reports 15 (2021) 100715

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Bioresource Technology Reports

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Pilot scale anaerobic co-digestion at tropical ambient temperature of India:

Digester performance and techno-economic assessment
Nupur Kesharwani *, Samir Bajpai
Department of Civil Engineering, National Institute of Technology Raipur, Chhattisgarh, India

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: In the present study, performance of a pilot scale anaerobic codigestion was studied at ambient temperature for a
Biogas period of 300 days. Locally available food waste and cow dung were used as feed material for the digester. The
Food waste organic loading rate was increased gradually while the process parameters such as pH, alkalinity, total volatile
Anaerobic codigestion
fatty acid, chemical oxygen demand along with biogas production were carefully monitored. Results showed that
LPG
Sensitivity analysis
at OLR of 2 kg VS/m3/d, maximum biogas yield of 4.21 L/day was observed. Based on the results obtained, the
Techno-economic analysis techno-economic and sensitivity analysis were performed for the digester by replacing the Liquefied Petroleum
Gas (LPG) both subsidized and non-subsidized, in the household's applications. The analysis concluded that
replacement of conventional sources of energy with biogas showed positive Net Present Value (NPV). The
sensitivity analysis revealed that the impact of cost of LPG and digester had a strong effect on NPV.

1. Introduction judiciously, can solve many challenges.

Food waste (FW) is one of the world's most pressing global challenges
often linked with food insecurity, environmental degradation, and
economic inefficiency. The term food waste could be defined as the food
which has been lost or spoiled during harvest or consumption (War­
shawsky, 2019). Food waste constitutes the largest share of the munic­
ipal solid waste (MSW) all over the world. In India, FW constitutes 30%–
50% of MSW in which cooked food share is 35%–40% (Kumar et al.,
2016). The overall wastage of food has reached to 67 Million tons in
India, amounting to US $ 14 billion (Bharucha, 2018).
In Indian context, the major portion of food waste is kitchen cooked
food waste, which includes leftover foods and vegetable residues waste
generated from the kitchens and at various places of food preparation
such as restaurants, hostels mess, hotels, canteens, cafeterias, etc.
(Zhang et al., 2007).
Generally, due to lack of financial incentives, absence of separate
facilities, interest in managing the food waste as a separate category of
waste is not there and it is usually dumped with or treated with other
municipal solids wastes. This creates burden and complications on
existing solid waste management system and over stretches the waste
management resources. In sustainable waste management hierarchy, the
source segregation and utilization of waste at source has paramount
importance. Food waste, if managed at source, efficiently and
Source segregated food waste with its high organic content can be a
suitable choice for anaerobic digestion. Anaerobic digestion (AD), a
microorganism driven biochemical process, may be an attractive alter­
native for both energy recovery and pollution control. The biological
processes have shown encouraging results over the treatment of com­
plex organic matter (Kesharwani and Bajpai, 2020). Anaerobic treat­
ment process, and anaerobic bioreactors have received great attention
due to their efficient environmental manageability. The anaerobic
digestion process is technically complex and non-energy intensive pro­
cess. In its simplest form, anaerobic digester consists of a digestion
chamber, a dome, an inlet, an outlet for biogas, and an outlet for slurry
(Abdelgadir et al., 2014).
Starting an anaerobic digester and its operation is difficult as well as
a sensitive process. For a successful AD process, a continuous monitoring
of process parameters is required (Griffin et al., 1998). Process param­
eters such as pH, total volatile fatty acids (TVFA), alkalinity of the
digester, organic loading rates (OLRs) and hydraulic retention time
(HRT) should be regularly monitored. A stable AD process could be
achieved by controlling these parameters (Yadav and Vivekanand,
2021). Apart from these, temperature (mesophilic or thermophilic)
plays a vital role for performance of an AD system. Heating jackets and
hot water jackets may provide stable temperature, but it may enhance
the overall cost of the biodigester, and this may not be economical for

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: nkesharwani.phd2016.ce@nitrr.ac.in (N. Kesharwani).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biteb.2021.100715
Received 14 February 2021; Received in revised form 5 May 2021; Accepted 6 May 2021
Available online 12 May 2021
2589-014X/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
N. Kesharwani and S. Bajpai
Inlet
FW+CD
Sample collection vessel
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the digester and actual laboratory setup.
lower-middle as well as poor socio-economic group (Choudhary et al.,
2020).
The present work involves design and operation of a small-scale
household level anaerobic digester for food waste, to be operated
under the ambient temperature conditions. The anaerobic digestion of
food waste may be a viable option for investing into waste to energy
facilities (Pham et al., 2015). The conversion of waste into energy has
multiple benefits of energy generation, environmental protection, and
protection of public health.
Energy is the vital requirement in life of every individual. Population
explosion and urban lifestyle has led to increase in energy demands
(Choudhary et al., 2020). In the period of 2011–2017, there was an
average increment of 3.5% per capita energy demand (Energy Statistics,
2018). Due to the fossil fuel related problems, more attention is drawn
towards renewable sources of energy. Bioenergy is one of the renewable
sources of energy, which caters for 10% of world's total energy re­
quirements (Adams et al., 2018). Utilizing food waste to produce
renewable energy in the form of biogas, will contribute to environ­
mental benefits such as curtailment in the emission of greenhouse gases,
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Bioresource Technology Reports 15 (2021) 100715
Gas outlet
Buffer digester
CD only
less dependency on the non-renewable energy sources, thereby making
it cost effective. Replacing the LPG with biogas may be one of the ex­
amples of replacing the conventional sources of energy with the
renewable fuels. However, only methane part will be useful for the
cooking purpose as its heating value is round 35 MJ/m3 while the
heating value of LPG is around 46–51 MJ/m3. Thus, a systemic and
detailed study is required in this direction to explore the suitability of
the biogas for replacing the LPG (http://www.cleancookingalliance.
org).
The economic evaluation of the anaerobic digester is also important
to promote its use. Harnessing energy through renewable sources should
be cheaper than the existing energy options and facilities, then only it
can be executed and applied widely. The technical-know-how must also
be comparatively simpler and easily understandable by a common man.
To be a feasible replacement option for the existing LPG in households,
the biogas digester must show a strong biogas yield and stable anaerobic
performance. A detailed analysis is required to explore the potential of
biogas generated through digester as substitution of the existing LPG.
Analysis based on data from an operating anaerobic digester can help to
N. Kesharwani and S. Bajpai
investigate the comparison of technologies in terms of their technical
and economic feasibility. Hence a detailed techno-economic and sensi­
tivity analysis of a household biogas digester is required for making
bioenergy and bio economy business–as–usual.
As far as the studies are concerned, there is a scarcity of literature
with focus on small-scale anaerobic digester with co-digestion of food
waste and cow dung, performing in ambient temperature conditions,
with optimisation of parameters. The novelty of the present work is
study of performance of digester under the ambient temperature con­
ditions without any temperature control and buffer addition. The eco­
nomic feasibility of this study has also been performed.
Thus, the objectives of the present study were (i) To evaluate the
performance of pilot scale anaerobic digester running on co-digestion of
food waste and cow dung at ambient temperature conditions (ii) To
optimize the value of organic loading rate for the digester using cow
dung only as control and digester doing co-digestion of food waste and
cow dung and (iii) To perform techno-economic feasibility analysis of
biogas from onsite biogas digester as a complete replacement or partial
replacement of LPG in kitchen for household applications.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Feedstock and inoculum
The food waste, which comprised of food leftovers and other food
waste, were collected from the hostel mess of NIT Raipur. To obtain a
substantial amount of homogeneous mass, the leftover meals from lunch
and dinner were mixed and stored at 4 ◦ C in the refrigerator every day,
to be used as a feed in the digester (Yadav et al., 2019). This mixing
ensured that the consumable food items that were not retained in the
lunch, may be available at the dinner. Hence, a reasonably uniform
mixture of food waste may be obtained with suitable proportion of all
the consumable food items, thereby making the mass homogeneous. The
ingredients of the food waste were cooked rice, chapattis (thin wheat
flour breads), cooked vegetables, salads, pulses and miscellaneous items.
This mixture was homogenised in a food blender, thereby making the
mass homogeneous. The inoculum was the fresh cow dung collected
from a nearby dairy. It was mixed with water to deliver the total solids
value of 1.5–2 g of Total solids (TS) and stored at 4 ◦ C in the refrigerator
till further use (Hegde and Trabold, 2019).
2.2. Pilot scale anaerobic co-digester set up
The anaerobic co-digester, employed in this study was having a total
volume of 35 l and working volume of 28 l (80% of total volume) and
made of high density poly-ethylene (HDPE). It was made air-tight to
ensure non-availability of oxygen. It was operated at ambient temper­
ature throughout the year (Fig. 1). The setup was fabricated and kept in
environmental engineering laboratory of the civil engineering depart­
ment at National Institute of Technology Raipur, Chhattisgarh, India
(21.2497◦ N, 81.6050◦ E). The daily average temperature of the lab was
also recorded. The average temperature of the lab throughout the
experiment was 25 ± 2.5 ◦ C and the average annual temperature of the
study site was 29.5 ± 2 ◦ C throughout the year. The feedstock was
grinded to a size of 2 mm–5 mm. Grinding enabled the increase in sur­
face area available for microbes (Deepanraj et al., 2020). Size reduction
of particles enhances the substrate utilization rate by the anaerobic
microbes (Jain et al., 2015). The grinded food waste was stored in a zip
lock bag at 4 ◦ C till further use. One digester served as control or blank
and only cow dung was considered as the feed in that digester. In
another digester, food waste was added along with the cow dung (50:50
on volatile solids (VS) basis). The feedstock concentration (S) for the
daily feed was selected as 100 g VS/L. The organic loading rate (OLR)
was kept as 1 g VS/L/day initially and then gradually increased to 8 g
VS/L/day in both the digesters. The flow rate (Q) of daily feed was
calculated as per Eq. (1) (Bhatt and Tao, 2020).
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Bioresource Technology Reports 15 (2021) 100715
Organic loading rate, OLR (gVS/L/D)
( )
Feedsctock concentration, S gVS × Flow rate, Q (L/d)
L
= (1)
Volume, V (L)
The hydraulic retention time (HRT) for each OLR was calculated as
Volume, V(L)
Hydralic retention time, HRT (d) = (2)
Flow rate, Q (L/d)
2.3. Start-up of the reactor and operation
The performance of digesters was observed in four phases – start-up,
stabilization, feed addition, and monitoring. During the start-up phase,
the required amount of cow dung to get a concentration of 100 gVS/L for
a volume of 28 l was added. VS was estimated based on the proximate
analysis performed initially. In 35 days, the digester reached stabiliza­
tion phase. To ensure consistent digester performance the effluent was
further monitored for 20 more days. The effluent was collected for
monitoring the parameters governing the anaerobic digestion process,
such as biogas yield, pH, total alkalinity (TA), total volatile solids, COD,
total volatile fatty acids (TVFA), TVFA/TA.
2.4. Analytical techniques
To determine the initial and final characteristics of the feedstock and
inoculum, the initial preparation of samples for analysis were carried out
in accordance with the procedures prescribed in Standard Methods
(APHA, 2005). pH was determined following the protocol described by
Eckert and Sims (1995). The TS, VS, moisture content, alkalinity and
COD were determined for raw materials and inoculum as per the Stan­
dard Method (APHA, 2005). Ultimate analysis viz. nitrogen, carbon and
hydrogen present in FW and inoculum was performed using Elemental
Analyser (FLASH 2000; Thermo Scientific, USA) (Zirkler et al., 2014).
Daily biogas yield was measured by water displacement technique
(Paritosh et al., 2020).
2.5. Techno-economic assessment
A techno-economic assessment was performed considering the pilot
scale experimental result. The techno-economic model was developed
for the current study by extrapolating the experimental results obtained.
An individual household can be the smallest source of food waste. The
analysis has been carried out for a family size of 3 and 5 people with the
digester size of 5m3 and 8 m3 respectively. The design life of digesters
was considered 20 years. The techno-economic analysis was performed
by replacing the LPG (both subsidized and non-subsidized) for house­
hold use. The cost of the LPG in India is around US$ 0.8/kg and US$
1.42/kg respectively for subsidized and non-subsidized supply (Rajen­
dran et al., 2013). The biogas produced from 5 m3 and 8 m3 biogas
digester was considered for the replacement of the LPG for cooking
purpose. Requirement of biogas for household cooking needs is 0.21 m3/
capita/day (Gupta and Ravindranath, 1997). Based on this, monthly
consumption of biogas was calculated. The savings were calculated by
replacing LPG by biogas for household use.
2.5.1. Techno-economic indicators
The techno-economic indicators used for this assessment were net
present value (NPV); internal rate of return (IRR); payback period (PB)
and discounted payback period (DPB). NPV was calculated to determine
the time value of money invested in the form of capital cost (CC) and
operational and maintenance cost (OMC). If the NPV is greater than 0, it
shows positive impact of the investment. NPV presents a clear picture of
cost benefit and investment by considering value of money in total
project. NPV was calculated as:
N. Kesharwani and S. Bajpai Bioresource Technology Reports 15 (2021) 100715

Table 1 3. Results and discussion

Characteristics of feedstock.
Parameters Units Food waste Cow dung 3.1. Feedstock characterization
Moisture content (MC) % 85.27 ± 1.62 74.07 ± 0.50
Total solids (TS) % 14.73 ± 1.53 25.93 ± 0.44 The proximate analysis and the ultimate analysis were performed for
Total volatile solids (VS) % of TS 89.83 ± 6.90 43.38 ± the feed stocks. The feedstock comprised of the kitchen cooked food
18.00 waste and the cow dung. The proximate analysis, physical and chemical
Fixed solids (FS) % 10.17 ± 6.00 56.62 ± characteristics, and ultimate analysis of the feed stocks are given in
18.19
pH – 5.5 ± 0.5 6.7 ± 0.7
Table 1.
Chemical oxygen demand mg/l 344,890 ± 8400 ± 900
(COD) 10,000 3.2. Digester start-up and operation
Alkalinity mg/l as 86.4 ± 9.2 230 ± 20
CaCO3
The 35 l anaerobic digesters employed in the present study were
Total carbon % 41.33 23.13
Total hydrogen % 6.96 3.21 operated for 300 days after stabilization was achieved. The ambient
Total nitrogen % 4 1.99 average temperature range was 24 ± 2 ◦ C during the start-up phase. One
Total oxygen % 47.71 72.45 of the digesters was fed with CD only which served as control and the
C/N ratio 10.33 11.61 other with FW and CD. During the experiment, the CD was fed initially
into the two digesters which served as inoculum. Food waste was added
∑n after the start-up period into the digester to facilitate its adaptation to
− OMCt + St
NPV = − CC + (3) the microorganisms, without being stressed. During the course of sta­
(1 + r)t
t=0
bilization, the average ambient temperature was 26 ± 2.5 ◦ C. By the
time feed addition started, the average ambient temperature reached to
where, n is the total plant life i.e. 20 years; r is the discount rate which is
27 ± 1.5 ◦ C. Hence during the course of study the ambient temperature
assumed as 8% for the biogas digester; CC is the capital cost for installing
was mostly within the mesophilic range.
the biogas digester and assumed as US$ 63/m3 of digester (Akbulut,
During the initial part of the start-up phase, fresh cow dung was
2012). OMCt is operational and maintenance cost in a year and assumed
mixed with water to form a slurry in equal proportion to maintain OLR
to be 5% of CC for pipes and accessories for biogas. St is the savings per
of 1 Kg VS/m3/day. This was fed as inoculum individually into each bio
year by replacing LPG with biogas from digester.
digester. The first gas production was observed on the 8th day of feeding
After this, IRR, PB and DPB were also calculated using Eqs. (4), (5)
which was 1.42 and 1.34 l from both the digesters.
and (6) respectively (Karellas et al., 2010). IRR is that discount rate at
which NPV becomes zero whereas; PB and DPB represent the time in
3.3. Daily biogas yield with organic loading rate and retention time
which the initial capital cost matches the total cash inflow with and
without discount rate, respectively.
Fig. 2(a) shows the effect of different OLR on the biogas production
∑n
− OMCt + St for the two digesters. As per the results, the maximum yield of biogas
(4)
was observed at the organic loading rate of 2 Kg VS/m3/day in the case
0 = − CC +
t=0 (1 + r)t
of both FW + CD and CD alone. In the case of digester having FW + CD,
− OMCt + St the maximum biogas yield was 4.3 L/d on 105th day at the OLR of 2 Kg
(5)
VS/m3/day. The HRT for this OLR was calculated as 50 days. Also, it was
PB =
CC
[ ( ] reported by Yadvika et al. (2004) that for tropical region, HRT fluctuates
)
r (1 + r)DPB between 30 and 50 days. The time required for the complete degradation
− OMCt + St = CC ( ) (6)
(1 + r)DPB − 1 of the organic matter in the biodigester is termed as retention time while
HRT is the time spent by the liquid sludge inside the digester (Deepanraj
Apart from the discount rate of 8% which was used for the whole et al., 2014; Mao et al., 2015). On an average, up to 40 days are required
techno-economic analysis, NPV and DPB term at 6 and 10% of the dis­ to digest the organic waste at mesophilic temperature while lesser time
count rate were also calculated to know the effect of variable discount may be required at thermophilic temperature (Pramanik et al., 2019).
rate on it. Variation of discount rate gives a clear picture of entire project The OLR of respectively 1, 4, 6 and 8 Kg VS/m3/day in the case of
life regarding investment. FW + CD showed respectively 3.1, 2.7, 1.9 and 1.6 L/d of maximum
biogas yield on 25th, 165th, 205th and 260th day of digester run for FW
2.5.2. Sensitivity analysis + CD, respectively. The HRT for these OLR was 100, 25, 12 and 6 days,
Techno-economic performance of entire biogas digester for house­ respectively. These results clearly showed that increasing the OLR from
hold use is sensitive to the variability of digester cost, operational cost 1 to 2 Kg VS/m3/day in the digester having FW + CD showed an
and cost of LPG over the years. Variation in capital cost and maintenance increment of 38% in maximum biogas yield. However, further incre­
may have substantial impact on NPV, IRR and PB. To assess this, the ment in the OLR showed a decrease of 59, 126, and 168% on maximum
sensitivity analysis was also performed. In general, terms, sensitivity biogas yield for 4, 6 and 8 Kg VS/m3/day of OLR respectively. The
analysis is a financial mode that determines how target variables will be average biogas yield for the digester running on FW + CD at OLR of 1, 2,
affected based on change in input variables. In a techno-economic 4, 6 and 8 kg VS/m3/day was 2.3, 3.6, 2.1, 1.7 and 0.85 L/d respectively.
analysis, sensitivity analysis shows the viability of the assumption In the case of digester running only on CD, the maximum biogas yield of
made on the NPV if cost of the input parameters fluctuates (Karellas 2.1 L/d was observed on 120th day. The OLR was 2 kg VS/m3/day for
et al., 2010). The values of all the variables were drifted by ±20% to this yield. The maximum biogas yield in the case of 1 kg VS/m3/day as
know whether these fluctuations will have any impact on the NPV of the OLR, was 1.8 L/d on 40th day which was equal to OLR of 2 kg VS/m3/
project over 20 years. day on 105th day. However, the average biogas yield for 1 and 2 kg VS/
m3/day as OLR was 1.1 and 1.5 L/d respectively. This shows that at OLR
of 2 kg VS/m3/day, average biogas yield was 36% higher to that at OLR
of 1 kg VS/m3/day. This was almost similar to the other digester having
FW + CD in which 38% increment was observed for average biogas yield
when shifting from 1 to 2 kg VS/m3/day as OLR. Interestingly, for both

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N. Kesharwani and S. Bajpai Bioresource Technology Reports 15 (2021) 100715

9
Biogas L/d (FW+CD)
8 Biogas L/d (CD)
7 OLR (kg VS/m³/day)

0
0 60 120 180 240 300
Digestion period (days)

(a): Daily biogas yield at various OLR

10.0 pH (FW+CD)
pH (CD)
8.0 OLR ( kg VS/m³/day)

6.0

4.0

2.0

0.0
0 60 120 180 240 300
Digestion period (days)

(b): pH variation at different OLR.

80 10

70
8
60

50
2 6

40

4
30

20
2
10

0 0
0 60 120 180 240 300

COD removal, % (FW+CD) COD removal, % (CD) OLR (kg VS/m³/day)

(c): COD removal efficiency at different OLR.

Fig. 2. (a): Daily biogas yield at various OLR (b): pH variation at different OLR. (c): COD removal efficiency at different OLR. (d): Variation of volatile fatty acids at
different OLR. (e): variation of alkalinity at different OLR. (f): variation of TVFA/alkalinity ratio at different OLR.

the digesters, OLR of 8 kg VS/m3/day showed lowest biogas yield and of temperature range was within 20 ◦ C–45 ◦ C. Thus, it can be concluded
eventually both the digesters stopped working on 275th and 290th day that the AD processes were carried out in mesophilic temperature range.
for CD and FW + CD respectively. The operation of the anaerobic digester was comparatively stable and
As the digesters were run at the ambient temperatures, the variation easy to operate. However, at mesophilic temperature, a longer HRT and

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N. Kesharwani and S. Bajpai Bioresource Technology Reports 15 (2021) 100715

10
TVFA, g/L as HAc (FW+CD)
TVFA, g/L as HAc (CD)
8
OLR (kg VS/m³/day)

0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
Digestion period (days)

(d): Variation of volatile fatty acids at different OLR.

10.00

Alkalinity, g/L as CaCO3 (FW+CD)

8.00 Alkalinity, g/L as CaCO3 (CD)

OLR (kg VS/m³/day)

6.00

4.00

2.00

0.00
0 60 120 180 240 300

Digestion period (days)

(e): Variation of alkalinity at different OLR.

8.0
TVFA/Alkalinity (FW+CD)
7.0
TVFA/alkalinity (CD)
6.0
OLR (kg VS/m³/day)
5.0

4.0

3.0

2.0

1.0

0.0
0 60 120 180 240 300
Digestion period (days)

(f): Variation of TVFA/alkalinity ratio at different OLR.

Fig. 2. (continued).

low OLR is a prerequisite (Angelidaki et al., 2005). Biogas yield is the maximum biogas yield as the ambient temperature was near to meso­
result of amount of food waste converted to biogas and thus it signifies philic temperature (25–35 ◦ C). Similar results were also reported by
the degradation efficiency at that amount of imposed organic input Banks et al. (2012) that at OLR of 2.5 kg VS/m3/day, a commercial
(Hegde and Trabold, 2019). Hence the OLR of 2 kg/VS/m3/day gave the anaerobic reactor running on household food waste showed stable

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Table 2
Digester performance (maximum) of various parameters at different OLR.
OLR AATa Operating month Biogas (L/d) pH COD removal (%) TVFA (g/L as HAc) A (g/L as CaCO3) TVFA/A
Kg VS/m3/d

FW + CD
1 28.06 ◦ C Mid-Feb 3.1 7.3 61 0.62 2.5 0.25
Mid-April
2 32.9 ◦ C Mid-April 4.3 7.6 68 0.86 2.5 0.34
Mid-June
4 28.06 ◦ C Mid-June 2.5 6.9 61 1.18 3.1 0.38
Mid-August
6 26.2 C
◦
Mid-August 1.9 6.9 56 1.53 3.8 0.40
Mid-October
8 22.7 ◦ C Mid-October 1.5 6.6 37 3.2 2.1 1.52
Mid-December

CD
1 28.06 ◦ C Mid-Feb 1.8 7.5 43 0.33 0.99 0.33
Mid-April
2 32.9 ◦ C Mid-April 2.1 7.6 47 0.48 0.96 0.50
Mid-June
4 28.06 ◦ C Mid-June 1.7 7.2 45 0.65 0.96 0.68
Mid-August
6 26.2 ◦ C Mid-August 1.1 6.8 39 0.44 0.95 0.46
Mid-October
8 22.7 C
◦
Mid-October 0.3 6.6 35 1.7 1.9 0.89
Mid-December

AAT – average ambient temperature; A - alkalinity.

a
https://en.climate-data.org/asia/india/chhattisgarh/raipur-5085/.

biogas production and no signs of inhibition. In another study, Liu et al.
(2017) showed that operation of an AD system running on FW, an OLR of
2.5 and 1.5 gVS/L/day would be optimal at thermophilic and mesophilic
temperature.
3.4. Effect of anaerobic digestion on pH and COD removal
Anaerobic process is sensitive to the variations in the pH. The
methanogenesis may be stopped if the pH of the digester is below 6.5 or
surpasses 8.2 (Leung and Wang, 2016). In case of AD, owing to a
continuous process of digestion, hydrolysis, and microbial conversion of
degradable organics, VFA accumulation affects the process by tending to
low pH. As per the results, both the digesters had similar variations in pH
values (Fig. 2(b)). In the case of OLR of 2 Kg VS/m3/day which gave the
highest biogas yield, results showed that pH of the digesters over the
study period was above 6.8, reaching maximum up to 7.5. It was
observed that there was no major change in the values of pH over time
with the increasing HRT. There were no major fluctuations in the pH
values, only a slight variation of 0.3–0.5 units, as visible from the graph.
This slight variation of pH is attributed to the non-homogeneous and
non-uniform characteristics and composition of food waste (Hegde and
Trabold, 2019; Kesharwani and Bajpai, 2020). This increase in the pH
value might be ascribed to the presence of CO2 through reactions
occurring in the digester by the microorganisms (Hansen et al., 1998).
Due to anaerobic digestion being in the methanogenesis phase, the gases
CO2 and CH4 will be released and will be collected by the gas holder for
use as fuel. This will reduce the concentration of CO2 in the reactor
mixed liquor, this will prevent the further decrease in pH. On increasing
OLR, the pH value starts decreasing, giving an indication of acidification
due to VFA. Hence, the optimal OLR is 2 kg VS/m3/day.
Similar results have been reported by Zhai et al. (2015) for co-
digestion of kitchen waste and cow dung for a pH value of 7.5. In
another study, Ariunbaatar et al. (2014) reported that the optimum
value of pH was 6.6–7.2, for the continuous stirred tank reactors (CSTR).
The average COD removal efficiency of the anaerobic digester was
58, 63.8, 59, 52.6 and 32.7% at the OLR of 1, 2, 4, 6 and 8 Kg VS/m3/day
respectively for FW + CD (Fig. 2c). For CD only, the average COD
removal at the OLR of 1, 2, 4, 6 and 8 Kg VS/m3/day was 39.6, 43.5,
42.7, 36.6 and 33% respectively. The highest COD removal efficiency
was observed as 68% at the OLR of 2 Kg VS/m3/day for FW + CD on
70th day. Similarly, for CD only, 47% of COD removal was observed at
the OLR of 2 Kg VS/m3/day on 100th day. These results show that the
OLR of 2 Kg VS/m3/day is optimal for the household anaerobic digester
application. Food wastes possess very high values of COD. Due to the
heterogeneous and complex nature of food waste, the removal efficiency
of COD remains under 75%. The presence of biologically resistant
organic substances does not permit higher removal efficiencies
(Kesharwani and Bajpai, 2020).
3.5. Effect of anaerobic digestion on volatile fatty acids and total
alkalinity
VFA is an important indicator for the performance of the anaerobic
reactor. It indicates a correlation between the methanogenic bacteria
and the COD break down. Analysis of VFA provides an insight about the
digester stability by maintaining a balance between the production rate
and consumption rate. The feedstock characteristics govern the con­
centration of VFA in the digester after hydrolysis and are in the range of
0.4–0.8 g/L as HAc (Pramanik et al., 2019). Excess production of VFA in
the anaerobic digester may reduce the pH which as a result may inac­
tivate the methanogens hampering the reactor performance. Fig. 2(d)
shows the variation of VFA at different OLR. It is evident from the graph
that as OLR is increased from 1 to 8 kg VS/m3/day, production of VFA
also increased for both the digesters having CD and FW + CD. The daily
maximum VFA for FW + CD was observed on 40th, 115th, 150th, 200th
and 295th day at OLR of 1, 2, 4, 6 and 8 kg VS/m3/day respectively. The
average minimum and maximum VFA observed was 0.35 and 2.14 g/L
as HAc at 1 and 8 kg VS/m3/day OLR respectively for the digester fed
with FW + CD. The average VFA for 2 kg VS/m3/day OLR was 0.56 g/L
as HAc and the daily biogas yield was also maximum for this OLR.
Fig. 2(e) shows the variation of alkalinity of the digesters at different
OLR. The digester having FW + CD showed significant deviation in the
alkalinity while the digester having only CD as feedstock showed rela­
tively low peaks over the digestion period. The maximum and minimum
alkalinity observed for the OLR of 1, 2, 4, 6 and 8 kg VS/m3/day was 2.5,
2.5, 3.1, 3.1, 2.1 and 0.2, 0.2, 1.2, 1.4, 0.76 g/L as CaCO3 respectively in
the case of FW + CD. The maximum average alkalinity was 2.37 g/L as
CaCO3 for the OLR of 4 kg VS/m3/day for FW + CD while for digester

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N. Kesharwani and S. Bajpai Bioresource Technology Reports 15 (2021) 100715

Table 3 (a) 600

Techno-economic assessment of replacing LPG cylinder with biogas digester. 6 % (S)
Particulars Biogas digester 6 % (NS)
3 3
400 8 % (S)
5m 8m
8 % (NS)
Replacing Replacing Replacing Replacing 10 % (S)
sub LPG non-sub LPG sub LPG non-sub LPG 200

NPV (US$)
10 % (NS)
Capital cost 315 315 504 504
($/20 year)
0
Operational cost 15.75 15.75 25.2 25.2
($/year)
Biogas 19.5 19.5 31.2 31.2
-200
generated
(m3/month)
Family size 2–3 2–3 4–5 4–5
-400
(people)
0 5 10 15 20
Cost of LPG 105.6 144.0 187.4 255.6
Years
saved ($/year)

Techno-economic indicators (b)

800
NPV (US $) 238.3 367.9 176.1 352.7
6 % (S)
IRR (%) 12.66 18.40 7.91 12.36
600 6 % (NS)
PB (years) 7.1 5.2 9.9 7.2
DPB (years) @ 8.4 5.6 7.3 4.9 8 % (S)
400
8% 8 % (NS)
200 10 % (S)

with CD, it was 1.67 g/L as CaCO3 at OLR of 8 kg VS/m3/day. Digester
employing FW + CD as a feedstock had generated sufficient alkalinity by
the degradation of protein and amino acids present in the food to bal­
ance the anaerobic digestion process. While in the case of CD, the
ruminant has already digested the food in the gut and then CD is ob­
tained, with little chance of getting protein (Miramontes-Martínez et al.,
2021). When proteins are degraded, alkalinity in the form of large
quantities of ammonium bicarbonate (NH4HCO3) is produced. This in­
creases the pH significantly if protein concentration and subsequently
protein degradation rates are higher. As the feed concentration is
increased, OLR becomes high. This increase in the OLR creates imbal­
ances in the AD system by affecting the alkalinity (Zhang et al., 2013;
Astals et al., 2014; Miramontes-Martínez et al., 2021).
In context of process stability of the digester, VFA/TA ratio is often
checked (Fig. 2(f)). It is considered to be the early warning indicator of
process failure. The optimal value must be 0.2–0.4. This ratio is helpful
in assessing the buffering capacity of the substrate (Miramontes-Martí­
nez et al., 2021). Table 2 summarizes the results of present study.
3.6. Techno-economic assessment
Based on the data available in the literature, certain assumptions
have been made to perform the techno-economic assessment. As per the
experimental study, OLR of 2 kg VS/m3/day, gave the maximum biogas
yield of 4 l/day for a digester of volume 35 l. This OLR, biogas yield and
the volume of the digester were considered as the base for the techno-
economic analysis calculations. Daily requirement of biogas for cook­
ing is 0.21 m3/capita/day (Gupta and Ravindranath, 1997). For a family
with 3 members, required yield of biogas will be 0.65 m3 and similarly,
for a family of 5 members, the biogas yield required will be 1.05 m3. On
extrapolating the obtained experimental results, it was observed that the
digester with a volume of 1 m3, working with the same efficiency as of
35 l digester will yield 0.13 m3 of biogas per day at ambient temperature
condition. Thus, the digesters having 5 m3 and 8 m3 of the volume
respectively will fulfil this requirement of biogas yield for the family of 3
and 5 people respectively.
In the present work, replacements of LPG (both subsidized and non-
subsidized) were assessed against biogas digesters for household cook­
ing. A family of 3 and 5 people would require 19 m3 and 31 m3 of biogas
per month. In this regard, the biogas yield of 5 m3 and 8 m3 digesters
would be 19.5 m3 and 31.2 m3 per month. The capital cost for 5 and 8 m3
digester were US$ 315 and US$ 504 respectively (Akbulut, 2012). The
OMC were 5% of the capital cost annually. The techno-economic
NPV (US$)
10 % (NS)
0
-200
-400
-600
-800
0 5 10 15 20
Years
Fig. 3. NPV at 6, 8 and 10% discount rate for (a) 5 m3 and (b) 8 m3 digester. S –
subsidized; NS – nonsubsidized.
assessment performed here involved no government subsidy in the
capital cost of the digester.
As a practical concern, 30–35 days of acclimatization will be
required for the inoculum in the digester to function effectively with
constant production of biogas. Assuming there is a constant supply of
food waste, the amount of food waste available will be 0.35–0.45 kg per
capita per day (UNEP Food Waste Index Report, 2021) by the families.
At the OLR of 2 kg Vs/m3/day, the digester will tend to produce nearly
5.25 l/day of biogas that will be sufficient to obtain uninterrupted
supply of biogas for the household. Thus, this economic model is prac­
tically feasible.
3.6.1. Techno-economic indicators
Table 3 shows the techno-economic assessment of replacing LPG
with biogas from anaerobic FW digester. Two digester having volume of
5 and 8 m3 have been compared for replacing subsidized and non-
subsidized LPG. For 5 m3 biogas digesters serving a family size of 2–3
people, the NPV was US$ 238.3 and US$ 367.9 for replacing subsidized
and non-subsidized LPG cylinder respectively for 20 years. Whereas, for
a family comprising of 4–5 people, served by 8 m3 digester, it was US$
176.1 and US$ 352.8 for replacing subsidized and non-subsidized LPG
cylinder for 20 years respectively. The monthly price of using bio­
digester is US$ 2.62 and US$ 4.2 for 5 and 8 m3 digester respectively.
However, for LPG it was US$ 7.33 and US$ 10 for 5 and 8 m3 digester
respectively for subsidized LPG. For non-subsidized LPG, it was US$ 8.41
and 11.3 per month respectively. The annual saving by a family of 2–3
members by using biodigester instead of a subsidized LPG supply is US$
56 while for family of 5, it could be up to US$ 70. This clearly shows that
using a biodigester for family of 5 members not only helps in utilizing
the food waste generated at the household for resource recovery but is

8
N. Kesharwani and S. Bajpai Bioresource Technology Reports 15 (2021) 100715

(a) also beneficial in monetary terms.

700
Subsidized
600 3.6.2. Sensitivity analysis
500
Non subsidized
Sensitivity analysis shows the variation in the economic indicators
due to fluctuation in capital and operational cost. In the present study,
NPV (US$)

400
discount rate, capital cost of biogas digester and cost of LPG were
300 considered for sensitivity analysis. Fig. 3(a and b) shows the NPV at
various discount rates for replacing subsidized and non-subsidized LPG
cylinder with biogas digester of 5 m3 and 8 m3 capacity. At 6%, the NPV
200

100 for 5 m3 digester were US$ 384 and US$ 535 for replacing subsidized
0 and non-subsidized LPG respectively. While at 10%, NPV dropped at US
5 m3 8 m3 5 m3 8 m3 $ 122 and US$ 235 for subsidized and non-subsidized LPG respectively.
-100
20.00% -20.00% Similarly, for 8 m3 biogas digesters, NPV jumped to US$ 375 for subsi­
dized LPG and US$ 581 for non-subsidized LPG at 6% discount rate.
Whereas, at 10%, NPV dropped to mere US$ 18 and US$ 171 for sub­
sidized and non-subsidized LPG.
10 Subsidized
(b) Fig. 4(a–d) shows the effect of change in prices of LPG and biogas
9 digester on NPV and PBT for 5 and 8 m3 digesters respectively. For 5 m3
Non subsidized digester, change in price of LPG by +20% showed NPV of US$ 411 and
8
US$ 567, while − 20% change showed US$ 64 and US$ 168 for subsi­
dized and non-subsidized LPG cylinders respectively. The change in
7
PBT (years)

6 price of LPG by +20% showed an increment of 68% and 54%, while

5 − 20% showed a decline of 3.6 and 2.1-fold in NPV for subsidized and
4 non-subsidized LPG cylinders respectively. In addition, the change in
3 Pay Back Time (PBT) for − 20% showed an increment up to 2 years
2
(Fig. 4). However, the change in PBT in the case of +20% change was in
the range of 4 to 6 years. Similarly, for 8 m3 digester, the NPV observed
1
was US$ 412 and US$ 324 at +20% change in LPG price, while at − 20%
0
5 m3 8 m3 5 m3 8 m3
the change in NPV was negative and US$ 80 for subsidized and non-
subsidized LPG cylinders, respectively. Thus, at +20% change in LPG
20.00% -20.00%
price, the PBT reduced by 1 year for subsidized and nonsubsidized
conditions of LPG. However, at − 20%, PBT for non-subsidized LPG
(c)
increased by 2 years and for subsidized LPG, the investment cannot be
600 paid back.
500
4. Conclusion
400
NPV (US$)

300 Small-scale household anaerobic biodigester performing co-

digestion of food waste and cow dung may replace the existing LPG
200
setup in tropical regions under ambient temperature conditions simul­
100 taneously reducing the carbon footprint of organic waste. In the present
0
study, OLR of 2 kg/VS/m3 day produced maximum biogas yield with
5 m3 8 m3 5 m3 8 m3 stable performance. Techno-economic analysis showed that replace­
-100
20.00% -20.00% ment with a non-subsidized LPG is monetarily beneficial with shorter
payback period, than subsidized LPG. In all the four cases of economic
analysis, NPV was positive, depicting possible uplift in the economic
Subsidized Non subsidized

conditions of low-income socio-economic groups and communities by

(d) replacing LPG with household biogas digesters.
10

CRediT authorship contribution statement

9
8
7
Nupur Kesharwani: Conceptualization, conduction of experiments,
PBT (Years)

6
5 data capture and analysis, Writing – original draft.
4 Samir Bajpai: Conceptualization, project administration, review
3 writing and editing.
2
1
0 Declaration of competing interest
5 m3 8 m3 5 m3 8 m3
20.00% -20.00% The authors declare no competing interests.
Subsidized Non subsidized

Fig. 4. Effect of ±20% change in price of LPG (a, b) and biogas digester (c, d) Acknowledgement
on NPV and PBT.
Nupur Kesharwani thanks National Institute of Technology, Raipur
for the assistantship and the infrastructure and facilities.

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N. Kesharwani and S. Bajpai Bioresource Technology Reports 15 (2021) 100715

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