What Is an On Farm Anaerobic Digestion System?
A farm-based anaerobic digester (AD) —also known as a biodigester— is essentially an air tight sealed, and heated container, located on a farm in which organic waste materials are broken down to produce biogas, effluent and solid remnants. They are shaped like silos, troughs, basins or ponds, and may be placed underground or on the surface. The biogas produced by the AD is approximately 60% methane with the most of the rest being comprised of CO2. AD systems are either batch type systems, which are simpler to build and maintain and are more suitable for most on farm scenarios, or they are continuous types. In a continuous digester, organic material is constantly or regularly fed into the digester. All biodigesters share the following basic components: A pre-mixing area or tank, which mixes the feedstock into a properly dilute slurry; A digester vessel or series of specialized vessels designed to each provide optimum environments for the specialized microorganisms required for each stag
