This paper examines a broad spectrum of challenges plaguing electric power supply in Africa. The challenges have lingered very long that policymakers, energy companies, and government agencies have shown docility in tackling the problem headlong. The increasing human population and technological innovations are evidence that the more the problem lingers, the more it becomes insurmountable. In this paper, it was proposed the lingering challenges can be solved using the standalone system of power generation. The renewable energy option and its adaptability were highlighted to guide standalone users on the way forward. The growing population in Africa can be advantageous in generating biogas from human feaces. It was discovered that renewable energy devices are quite expensive; hence, the biogas option for cooking and powering gas generators seem to be sustainable as its technology can be modified to suit the users' financial base. Therefore, it is projected that if the human excretal biogas can be adopted, Africa will soon overcome its energy crisis through the doggedness of its standalone users.
It has been proposed that providing energy for cooking and lighting would solve over 65% of energy needs in rural communities. The use of biomass resources has been found not sustainable as other bioproducts such as biodiesel and bioethanol depend on it. More so that there is a depletion of bioresources in some parts of the world. The shift into animal waste such as poultry droppings and cattle dung has huge prospects, but it is not sustainable in the long term as rural farmers depend on it. The use of human excreta is the most available and sustainable due to the human population. This research aims to provide a workable blueprint of biogas production to meet energy needs. The research considers a laboratory‐scale experiment whose result is used to project the medium‐scale biodigester. Microbial culturing from human waste is used to initiate the codigestion of human excreta and powdered chicken feathers. It is observed that this procedure drastically reduces the high nitrogen content in the biogas and improves its methane and carbon dioxide content. It is observed that the scaled‐up biodigester in a worst case scenario can function at 67%. Design parameters are documented for the onward adoption of the technique.
Low-quality, infectious pathogens, toxic chemicals, heavy metals, genotoxic, or radioactive particles are associated problems of biogas derived from human excreta. Most researchers had focussed solely on production optimization but with realities of pathogenic bioaerosols that may be dangerous to the users, there is a need to focus on the clean source-enhanced biogas production from human excreta. This research is designed to seek clear optimizable parameters in the clean production of biogas and its commercialization. A laboratory set-up was constructed to determine the biogas yield, bacteria mass, time of highest yield, and temperature. The surface response method was used to examine the influence of the microbial growth modifications from syntropic acetate oxidation (SAO) to a novel syntropic calcium acetate oxidation (SCAO) bacteria-using eggshell. It was observed that the human biogas production can be as high as 1020 g/ml on laboratory-scale within 30 days. More so, the biogas quality was improved by crashing the nitrogen gas content by 66%. The SCAO bacteria was observed to decompose the ammonia gas to form methane and NOx gases at a ratio of 3:1 within the first 20 days. The novel SCAO bacteria are suggested as good candidates to control ammonia and greenhouse gas emissions from human waste. It is recommended that there are still more to be done in culturing SCAO bacteria with slow growth and longer life span to make this process appreciate to industrial scale.
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