ASSESSMENT OF BIOGAS PRODUCTION OF CERTAIN VARIETIES OF Pennisetum purpureum, Zea mays and Sorghum saccharatum

Abstract

The climate crisis that is affecting the planet Earth is pushing us to look forward for the optimization of the productive systems, with the final purpose of closing up energetic cycles, and in this way, attempt to take the most amount of energy that is produced. This is how clean energy or alternative energy sources are making their way into the productive systems, as it is the case of biogas, who takes advantage of the agricultural and/or urban waste in order to produce methane. In this experiment, we compared three crops: two varieties of King Grass (Pennisetum purpureum) two varieties of maize (Zea mays), and one variety of sorghum (Sorghum saccharatum), with the purpose to determine the corresponding variables of: plant height, stem thickness, and number of leaves. At the end of the test the respective laboratory analysis for fresh weight, dry weight, volatile mass, and biogas production were made. King Grass (P. purpureum) was the one who showed better results in terms of biomass production, being the “Altura” variety the one that gave better yields, which indicates better yields in terms of biogas production. The main objective of the present work was to compare the total biomass production as a source of biogas, by measuring: plant height, stem thickness, number of leaves and biogas production.