Variation of Biogas Production with Different Factors in Poultry Farms of Bangladesh Mohammad Shariful Islam *1 , Asif Islam #2 , Md. Zakirul Islam *3 * Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology (BUET) * Palashi, Dhaka, Bangldesh 1 sabuz03@gmail.com # Planning & Development Division, Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB) Ltd. Ramna, Dhaka, Bangldesh 2 asif038@gmail.com 3 zakirul.islam11@gmail.com Abstract— In Bangladesh, biogas has a huge potential with it’s over 200000 poultry and about 200 million of poultry birds. Contrary to the immense potential of producing 1.33TWhr electricity per year from poultry industry, only few number of biogas plants have been deployed in some farms till date. Besides, most of these plants are unable to produce the expected amount of biogas for their technical shortcomings. Most of these plants run by locally made equipment and don’t have any scheme for controlling the significant factors of biogas production. However, there are few bigger sized plants consisting imported digesters, monitoring and controlling systems which yield larger amount of biogas production. In this study the impacts of some major factors on biogas production was analysed comparing biogas production between locally made digesters and imported digesters. The result reveals that up to 75% more biogas is generated in imported digesters than the locally made digesters. Keywords— Digester, Anaerobic Digestion, Temperature, Total Solid, pH I. INTRODUCTION There are thousands of poultry farms scattered throughout the country. Once installed, the biogas plant of poultry farm can generate necessary electricity required for itself and supply to the neighbouring localities where national grid power is not available. Other than electrification this will also reduce [1] CO 2 emission, alleviate environmental pollution, reduce bad odour produced in poultry farms, create job scopes for people of the adjacent area, mitigate the stress on the national grid and can generate revenue selling organic fertilizer [2]-[4]. Efficient management of produced biogas, electricity and heat wastage will provide the maximum benefit out of the available resources [2]. Only a limited number of biogas plants are deployed in the poultry farms of Bangladesh. Besides, plants already deployed are not managed properly which reduces the production of biogas hence the efficiency [5]. There are different factors which influence the production of biogas e.g.-temperature, pH, bacterial population in digester, mixture of different substrate, hydraulic retention time, total solid (TS), periodic agitation, periodic loading and unloading of substrate etc. This study is aimed at to reveal the influence of these factors on biogas production in biogas plants deployed in poultry farms of our country. II. METHODOLOGY Bangladesh is a very prominent developing country located in the north eastern part of South Asia. It has a population of about 158 million people. To meet the protein demand of this huge population there exist about 49825 number of poultry rearing about 70.71 millions of poultry birds. Collectively, these birds lay huge amount of droppings every day which can be used to produce electricity installing biogas plants. The usual solid contents of the droppings are about 20%. Biogas produced from per kg of solid content is about 0.4 m 3 . According to BCSIR, 1kWhr of electricity can be produced from 22.4 CFT of biogas. About 82 million CFT of biogas can be produced per day in a whole, which is equivalent to 30 billion CFT of biogas per year. These amounts of biogas can produce 3.65 GWhr of electricity per day which is equivalent to 1.33 TWhr per year [3]. For 14 hours of operation this biogas can run a 260MW generation unit. In this study, data was collected from 18 poultry farms located in different parts of our country and analyzed these data with a view to determine the effects of different factors on biogas production. For technical and economic success it is necessary to maintain the quality and quantity of gas. To maintain these prerequisite following conditions must always be fulfilled: • Anaerobic condition in the digester. • Temperature in the suitable range. • Availability of nutrients for bacteria; • Substantial amount of nutrients bacteria. • Substrate must be loaded and unloaded periodically. • C/N ratio. • Proportion of solids content and proper agitation. • Absence of inhibitors of the digestion process. A. Effect of Temperature Temperature has the most evident impacts on anaerobic digestion. It has three main temperature ranges: from 10-25°C