Methane control and monitoring system for a biogas digester.

Abstract

The system development is being motivated by the need to reduce pressure on the forests and high electricity tariffs. A good number of urban households using electricity for lighting (33.5%), the low percentage of the same households using it for cooking (6.3%) implies that some households have electricity connected to the houses but do not use it as the main source of energy for cooking. If the biogas project is scaled up, it could allow Ugandans who live too far from the power grid to generate their own energy. The new sources of energy such as biogas are still poorly developed. The methane control and monitoring system for a biogas digester composed of one microcontroller that controls when to turn on and turning off of the heater, the motors, pump, and other components depending on the user input and the current temperature in order to obtain the desired methane level. The heater and the pump are off while the system is running normally at normal temperatures. The heater, motor and the pump are turned on automatically when the user input is not reached and when temperature is below 40 and when the user input is reached, the heater the pump and motor are turned off when user input is reached. The motor representing the pump is turned on automatically when the user input is not reached and when temperature is above 40, the pump and the motors are turned off when user input is reached. For purposes of demonstration, a simple biogas digester has been designed which shows how the users can use the system?