Vol. 10, Special Issue 11 (2021)

Author(s):
Kavan Kumar V, R Mahendiran, P Subramanian, S Karthikeyan and A Surendrakumar

Abstract:
Leather fleshings are the solid waste generated from the tannery industries and large-scale production of waste is associated with the land, air, and water pollution. Leather fleshings being rich in protein are most suitable for biomethanation. The main problem addressed in this research is the lime treatment of the tannery fleshings causing a high pH of 11 - 12 which unfavorable for methanogenesis. Therefore, the solution for this problem is achieved through mixing the ammonium salts as deliming agent to reduce the pH of leather fleshings. The key aim of this study is to utilize this waste from tanneries to the biogas yield as much as possible. The deliming process has been carried out using ammonium chloride and ammonium sulphate with different proportion for 30 and 60 minutes time of treatment and the results obtained that 8.15 - 8.30 for 60 minutes of treatment and pH shows 8.54 – 8.75 for 30 minutes of treatment. Hence these conditions were feasible to the anaerobic digestion of tannery fleshings to produce biogas and methane. From the batch experiments R₃(50:50) of cowdung and delimed fleshings and R₄(25:75) of bio-digested slurry and delimed fleshings yielded highest biogas of 29.37 and 31.85 l/kg of fleshings.