New textile digesters for biogas from households wastes

Organic or biological or compostable wastes (food, vegetables, etc.) is a major fraction of household wastes. On the other hand, households need energy or fuel for cooking, which is usually gas (LPG or natural gas), kerosene, electricity or charcoal. Biogas (that is similar to natural gas) is also used for cooking and lightening at households. The biogas is produced in reactors or digesters that is usually made of concrete, bricks, or stainless steels, and for the small ones, also plastics or fiberglass. However, these digesters are usually expensive and demand financial subsidiary to be economically feasible for households.

A Swedish company (FOV) has recently developed biogas reactors from specific textile materials that is resistant to the digestion condition. Our PhD students (Karthik and Solmaz) have tested a textile reactor of such materials at the lab for more than a year and it works quite well. It is strong, gas tight, portable and resistance to the chemicals and bacteria present in the digesting media. The reactors have a lifetime of at least 10 years according to the company. These reactors can be used at households to produce biogas for cooking from their kitchen wastes. Read more about these reactors and their economical feasibility here!