Biogas as an alternative to stubble burning in India
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Biogas as an alternative to stubble burning in India Preseela Satpathy 1
&
Chinmay Pradhan 1
Received: 14 July 2020 / Revised: 29 October 2020 / Accepted: 6 November 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Crop residue management and curbing stubble burning is of global interest. For every tonne of rice harvested, approximately 1.4 tonnes of straw is left behind on the crops and a similar proportion applies for the other major crops as well. Direct on-farm burning remains the most common method in India to manage these huge volumes of crop residues. Generating biogas from the crop wastes could be an effective and environment friendly alternative. Biogas is a renewable source of energy, offers controlled waste management along with reducing greenhouse gases and harmful pollutants. The digested sludge when used as an organic fertiliser even completes a sustainable loop of recycling nutrients back into the soil. Crop residues due to their rich organic content have demonstrated excellent biogas potential. Most energy crops have shown methane yields of approximately 300 m3/t of organic matter. This gas could be used as a fuel or converted to electricity or even upgraded to bio-methane. To further optimise the process, different types of pretreatment methods and co-digestion of the substrates have been identified. The current article aims at providing a perspective on the impact of stubble burning and replacing the practice by producing biogas instead, thus, providing information on the potential, limitations and methods for optimising methane generation from the crop residues. Keywords Biogas . Crop residue . Stubble burning . Surplus biomass . Waste management
1 Introduction India is primarily an agriculture-based country and produces as much as 620 million tonnes (MT) of crop residues every year [1]. Crop residues are defined by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) as ‘plant material remaining after harvesting, including leaves, stalks, roots’ [2]. In some cases, by-products like husks and shells after the process of milling and even damaged crops are considered. Crop wastes are generated in India majorly from cereals like rice, wheat (in the form of husk and bran) and millet contributing nearly 70% of the total crop residues. Significant proportions are also generated from sugarcane (as bagasse and molasses), fibre crops, maize, pulses, oil seeds like rapeseed and mustard, coconut and groundnut shells, etc. [3, 4]. These carbon-rich crop residues could be excellent resources to produce energy and the United Nations
* Preseela Satpathy [email protected] 1
P.G. Department of Botany, Utkal University, M751004, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India
Environment Program (UNEP) strongly recommends recovering the energy contained in them [5]. Estimates suggest that the available biomass in India has the potential of generating up to 18,000 MW electricity [6]. However, the real scenario is far from this since almost half of the crop resid
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