Biogas production from

Jatropha presscake
Guillaume Beduneau and Floris
van den Hooven
 Introduction - Internship at ITB
• 6 months internship at ITB Teknik Kimia
faculty, biofuel department
– Study background: Environmental Science at
Avans University Breda, The Netherlands
• Topic of internship: Digestion of Jatropha
C. presscake
– Improvement of the utilization of Jatropha C.
and asset increase for the farm/plantation
 Research questions
• “Can Jatropha crude oil production be
at the same time competitive with the
global Biodiesel market, profitable for
the Indonesian producer and
environmentally sustainable?”
• “What can bio-digestion contribute to
the sustainability of Biodiesel
production from Jatropha C?”
 Research setup
• Digestion of Jatropha C. presscake in 2
biodigesters
– Large Biodigester (1,5 m2)
– Experimental biodigester (22 liter)
• Operating small scale electrical
engine(500W) and gas burner on
produced biogas
– Measuring energy produced
 Research Setup
• Determining additional value of bio-
digestion by calculation money value of
produced electricity/biogas
• Developing a logistic which will allow the
trading of wastes for biogas production
(deal with resistances from society)
• Determining additional “non-financial”
assets gained from Jatropha production
 System of Jatropha production
The yellow box displays the focus
of our research
Seeds
Fertilizer Jatropha Digested sludge
Labor Production (Fertilizer)
Energy

Jarak seeds
Gas
digestion biogas combusti

ll
on

mi
Farm
Farm

Expelling

ra k
(primary and

Ja
Labor
Energy secondary

biogas

Heat
expelling)

raw vegetable oil

Electricity
Electricity farmer
generation

Vegetable
oil
treatment
Pure vegetable oil
factory
Bio-dieselfactory
Bio-diesel

Bio-diesel
company Bio-diesel
production
 Today’s topic
• Biogas production from Jatropha C.
presscake
– Reasons for biogas production from Jatropha
C. presscake
– Results of the research so far
– Adaptation of digesting bacteria to
Jatropha.C.
– Expectations for future experiments
 Reasons for biogas production
from Jatropha C. presscake
• 1000kg of harvested biomass will produce
– 650kg of fruit coat
– 245-280kg of residue
– 70-105kg of extracted oil (depends on the
expeller extraction capacity)
So 7w%-10,5w% of the harvested biomass will
be sold as vegetable oil.
 Energy extraction from harvested
biomass
weight energy content total energy % energy
(kg) (MJ/kg) (MJ) extraction
Harvested
biomass 1000 21.2 21200 100%
oil extracted
~30% of the
seeds weight 105 40 4200 20%
oil extracted
~20% of the
seeds weight
70 40 2800 13%
www.jatropha.de/Journal/Henning-paper.pdf

Up to 87% of the energy in Jatropha is wasted!

 Application of bio-digestion to
residue
• One of the most interesting characteristic
of the biodigestion is the fact that this
process extracts energy while maintaining
the fertilizing capacity of the residue.
• Carbon conversion of 80-95% of carbon
weight (J. Visser e. a., Ingenia 2007)
 Energy extracted by bio-digestion
• 1000 kg residue
– Expected biogas production: 780 m3 ~ 835 kg
– LHV biogas = 18-22 MJ/kg
– Total energy extracted ~15 – 18,5 GJ
weight energy content total energy % energy
(kg) (MJ/kg) (MJ) extraction
Harvested
biomass 1000 21.2 21200 100%
oil extraction
=30% 105 40 4200 20%
oil extraction
=20% 70 40 2800 13%
Biogas from
residue 200 18-22 3600-4400 17-21%

So according to these expectations the energy extraction is doubled by

using biodigestion.
 Results – Problems with running
bio-digester on Jatropha mill
• Observed failure to produce biogas
– pH = 5,5 (normally > 7 in a working anaerobic
digester)
– Methanogenic bacteria fail to produce biogas,
buildup of acid
• Possible reason for failure
– Jatropha presscake was added to the digester
in a too early stadium, methanogenic bacteria
failed to adapt to Jatropha (Toxins)
 Bacterial adaptation to Jatropha.C

• In general
– Manure digestion works with a volume ratio of
50% fresh manure and 50% water.
– Jatropha digester works whit ~10% of
Jatropha.C and ~90% manure mix (same ratio
of dry matter in a volume of substrate)
• At the moment
– The experimental biodigester works whith
35% manure, 1,5%Jatropha.C and 63,5%
water.
Biogas production at the moment
historic experimental digester
Gas flow (litre/h)
0.70

0.60

0.50 4vol% Jatropha

(litre/hour)

0.40 23vol% Manure

73vol% Water 1,5vol% Jatropha
0.30

pH 5.5 35vol% Manure

0.20
63,5vol% Water
0.10
pH 7.5
0.00
0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

1000
T (h)
 Expectations for further
experiments
• Achieved to adapt the bacteria
– Step by step the percentage of Jatropha.C will
be increased up to the target of 10w%.
– At each step, the evolution of the biogas
production will allow to evaluate the real
energy extraction capacity of biodigestion.
• Burn the biogas.
– By using a gas stove and an electric
generator it will be possible to measure the
complete energy balance of the system.
Thank you for your attention