Innovative Designs in Household Biogas Digester in Built Neighbourhoods
Most household biogas digesters operate on continuous automatic stirring modes. Often, these digesters rely on electrical energy for their continuous operations which are often mesophilic. Rarely do manually-stirred discontinuous household biogas digesters operating on hyper-thermophilic conditions exist. This work seeks to highlight some innovative designs in a household biogas digester piloted in Terterkessim slum in the K.E.E.A. Municipality of the Central Region, Ghana. A pyramidal dome-shape biogas digester was constructed on an abandoned septic tank using blocks and concrete. The digester has a rectangular sub-surface base and a pyramidal gas holder above the surface of the soil. The digester has a two-blade manual stirrer, a ball bearing affixed at the bottom and a handle to manually mix the content of the digester. In order to heat the content of the digester to a hyper-thermophilic condition for hygienising the digestate, a solar-photovoltaic was installed on the roof of a toilet connected to the household biogas digester.