กระบวนการผลิตแก๊สชีวภาพจากเปลือกผลไม้เขตร้อนและผักตบชวา
- ชื่อนักเรียนผู้จัดทำโครงงานวิทยาศาสตร์
กันติทัต สวัสดิ์วุฒิกุล, ธีรัช เตมียสถิต
- อาจารย์ที่ปรึกษาโครงงานวิทยาศาสตร์
สุรนันท์ อนันตชัยศิลป์
- โรงเรียนที่กำกับดูแลโครงงานวิทยาศาสตร์
- ปีที่จัดทำโครงงานวิทยาศาสตร์
บทคัดย่อโครงงานวิทยาศาสตร์
Thailand, as well as most countries in Southeast Asia, is an agricultural country, over 50 percent of its population lives by agriculture. Therefore, one of the most significant products are the agri-residues including fiber and fruit branches. Moreover, people in some certain parts of Thailand emphasize planting famous tropical fruits and produce the massive amount of wastes, such as shells or peels of durian, mangosteen, pineapple, rambutan and banana, every year.
These wastes, however, are not the only major part of total organic waste in Thailand since invasive plant species like water hyacinth is another kind of ecological problem Thai people have to face because of its sheer speed of growth and obstruction of the light pathway through water surface.
Simultaneously, alternative energy is becoming more important as the demand for energy is increasing. One of many ways to approach this is producing biogas via Anaerobic Digestion (AD), the process in which biowastes are used as a substrate and the bacteria in archaea domain convert them into a gaseous mixture, mainly composed of methane, under the absence of oxygen. Therefore, it can give two benefits at the same time: eliminating biowastes and providing an energy resource. By the biological digestion mentioned above, cattle dung is an excellent source to use these bacteria as inoculum, due to its alkalinity that maintains pH.
As our research group members are aware of these problems, we also perceive that Suanlamai garden, a big orchard and a fruit buffet shop with varieties of tropical fruits, is also struggling to eliminate a great deal of fruit waste. For instance, the number of masses of durian shell from Suanlamai can exceed four tons a week. The current solution of Suanlamai is burying these wastes in order that they become fertilizer, or the wastes are dumped without any utilization. In further, sheep dung will be our alternative as an inoculum instead of cattle dung: due to its excessive amount from Suanlamai and its high volatile solid proportion.
Anaerobic digestion is a privilege way of producing biogas from organic waste all around the world. Anaerobic bacteria, which can be found in natural resource (such as cattle’s dung, swamp water or soil), is used. This process produces Methane as a main product, including carbon dioxide, nitrogen and hydrosulphide. These gases can either be used for heating purposes (i.e. cooking) or can be compressed to be used as vehicles power.
Therefore, our research group decided to figure out a new solution for managing fruit waste and water hyacinth in Thailand by using the knowledge of Anaerobic Digestion and alternative energy, starting with a local scope, Suanlamai.