BIOGAS GENERATION AND RECOVERY
POTENTIAL WITHIN SELECTED AGRO-INDUSTRIES AND SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT SECTOR IN THAILAND

Lee, Seunghwan; Park, Jaechul; Brissonneau, Delphine

doi:2003.8.3.107

Environmental Engineering Research 2003;8(3): 107-115. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4491/eer.2003.8.3.107

BIOGAS GENERATION AND RECOVERY POTENTIAL WITHIN SELECTED AGRO-INDUSTRIES AND SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT SECTOR IN THAILAND

Seunghwan Lee¹^†, Jaechul Park¹, and Delphine Brissonneau²

¹School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Kumoh National University of Technology, Gumi 730-010, Korea
²School of Environment, Resources and Development, Asian Institute of Technology P.O. Box 4, Khlong Luang, Pathumthani 12120, Thailand

Corresponding Author: Seunghwan Lee ,Tel: +82-54-467-4240, Fax: +82-54-467-4050, Email: dlee@oimoh.ac.kr

Received: November 7, 2002; Accepted: March 6, 2003.

ABSTRACT

Biogas technology is an efficient way to treat waste and at the same time to mitigate the Green Houses Gas (GHG) emissions through Clean Development Mechanisms (CDM). CDM can be used by industries to comply with the regulations as fixed in the Kyoto protocol and reduce the level of GHG. This study aims at analysing what is the extent of the biogas technology and what are the potential to expand such technology within different selected agro-industries and landfill sites in Thailand. The analysis, based on secondary data collection and site visits, is limited to the generation of biogas from anaerobic treatment of organic wastewater and to Landfill Gas (LFG) recovery. It is found that the recovery of LFG is very limited and may not increase unless the solid waste management system is improved in Thailand. Tapioca, palm oil, rubber industries and distilleries appear to have the greatest potential for biogas generation and recovery mainly due to the large production capacity, which lead to a significant volume of organic wastewater emission. Factories belonging to these industries are big enough for the cost-effective biogas plant implementation-Main hindrances to biogas technology transfer are caused by financial issue having high investment costs and technical issue as the skill and knowledge in biogas technology are not yet widespread in Thailand.

Keywords: anaerobic treatment | biogas | CDM | sanitary landfill | wastewater