International Journal of Materials and Chemistry 2017, 7(2): 21-24 DOI: 10.5923/j.ijmc.20170702.01 The Production of Biogas Using Cow Dung and Food Waste Ukpabi Chibueze 1,* , Ndukwe Okorie 2 , Okoro Oriaku 3 , John Isu 4 , Eti Peters 5 1 Department of Biochemistry, Abia State Polytechnic, Aba, Nigeria 2 Department of Biology, Abia State Polytechnic, Aba, Nigeria 3 Department of Chemistry, Abia State Polytechnic, Aba, Nigeria 4 Department of Physics, Abia State Polytechnic, Aba, Nigeria 5 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Abia State Polytechnic, Aba, Nigeria Abstract In Nigeria, the scarcity of petroleum supply particularly kerosene has become a national concern. Biogas technology has gained national interest. This research was to generate biogas using cow dung and food wastes. Food wastes (corn cobs and plantain peels at the ratio of 1;1) were collected from the Abia State Polytechnic canteen and cow dung from Aba North LGA slaughter house as feedstock for the anaerobic digestion system to produce biogas energy. This design was to combined feedstock with high caloric content and anaerobic microbes. The proximate composition revealed that the two feedstock contained energy yielding nutrients but at varying concentrations. The study revealed that the pH decreased possibly as the bacteria produce acids in the digester. The decrease was more observed in the cow slurry experiment as it recorded acidic at the 4 th day than the combined waste slurry which recorded acidic at 12 th days. The data showed the volume of biogas production in respect of number of days under the various slurry. It can be deduced from the data that gas production increased in the earlier days of the experiments and then started decreasing as acid concentration increases as indicated by the decrease in pH. This observation was more pronounced in combined waste slurry than the cow dung slurry. The result supported the observation that acid concentration greatly affects the biogas production. Thus the combined waste slurry produces more gas (30.58ml) than cow dung slurry (19.20ml) as food wastes contain more nutrients than the dung. It has been demonstrated by this study that by using combine feedstock (cow dung and food wastes) the efficiency of biogas generation can be increased. Keywords Biogas technology, Cow dung, Food waste 1. Introduction Biological degradation of organic material under aerobic and anaerobic conditions is a key process within the natural metabolism of ecosystem [1]. This term is often used in relation to energy, waste management and is now commonly associated with the anaerobic generation of methane. Anaerobic process could either occur naturally or in a controlled environment such as a biogas plant. Organic waste such as livestock manure and food waste are put on an airtight container called digester [2]. Livestock manure has been established as major source of microbes while food waste have high caloric and nutritive values for growth and sustainability of microbes [2-4]. Biogas technology is distinct because of its potentials of using organic material to generate energy and at the same time producing superior nutrient compost or digestate as fertilizer. This process * Corresponding author: ukpabichibueze@yahoo.com (Ukpabi Chibueze) Published online at http://journal.sapub.org/ijmc Copyright © 2017 Scientific & Academic Publishing. All Rights Reserved produces gases principally methane (CH 4 ) and carbon (iv) oxide (CO 2 ) and has positive environmental impact due to the reduction of CO 2 and CH 4 -the cause of global warming [3]. Generally, anaerobic digestion of animal manure solves three problems, unpleasant odour management, creation of new source of bioenergy and the reduction of green house gases emission [5, 6]. Anaerobic decomposition involves three stages (hydrolysis, acidification and methanogenesis) of biochemical processes with release of energy rich biogas [7]. The organic matter is catabolized externally by extra cellular enzymes, in the first stage. The acid producing bacteria converts the intermediate to low molecular weight compounds thereby creating anaerobic condition which is essential for the methane producing micro organisms [7]. Methane producing bacteria which are involved in the third stage decompose compounds having low molecular weight to form CH 4 and CO 2 [8]. These gases can be measured by counting anaerobic microbes and/or the amount of CH 4 that are produced [7-9]. In Nigeria, the scarcity of petroleum supply particularly kerosene has become a national concern. Biogas technology