Building a biodigester - part two

How to build a biodigester. Step by step. DIY. Biogas plant. Renewable energy. Off grid survival. Homebiogas. Methane.
SUBSTRATE IN
30 gal Barrel amzn.to/3JW8TqG
2” uniseal amzn.to/3JY4LGR
2” pvc amzn.to/3yd4jSt
2” adapter amzn.to/4dCamQz
2” valve amzn.to/3WzFHgX
2” funnel amzn.to/4aeEz5v
EFFLUENT OUT
1” uniseal amzn.to/4bvDDKT
1” pvc amzn.to/4dzWINV
1” elbow amzn.to/3UxZQ49
1” threaded amzn.to/3UuuDim
1” valve amzn.to/4beg35U
1” tee amzn.to/3JVeRrP
1” plug amzn.to/4dMO1jF
GAS OUT
3/4” nipple amzn.to/3QzgnDF
3/4” Tee amzn.to/3QDApgA
3/4” - hose barb amzn.to/4adoFIy
3/8” hose amzn.to/3QDljaX
SPECIAL TOOLS
3” hole saw amzn.to/3UCrz3B
1 3/4” hole saw amzn.to/3ye0r3y
Bung wrench amzn.to/4b86l51

[@foreknow]

Thanks for sharing the info!

[@Jimbo-dw2vj]

Hey it's your long lost buddy you gifted the black German Shepherd to in NC. I switched phones and need to track down your number. Haha. Nice channel!

[@BiogasUSA]

Yea man. Give me a call. I’d love to hear from you.

[@kawaiisenshi2401]

I'm in in Eastern NC if anyone is close by 👀

[@paulishism]

This is a great resource.

[@BiogasUSA]

Thank you Paul! I’m glad you think so.

[@cricketol]

why not have a presser relief valve in place of the bubbler. Also you could have the compressor attached permanently. have a valve between the digester and the gas storage area. so they digester does not end up with vacuum. hope that can help out have a 2 or 3 bar presser relief valve 2 bar is 29 psi and 3 bar is 43 psi

[@BiogasUSA]

Hey! Great idea with the compressor permanently attached. I have actually done that already, I just haven’t made any videos that shows it yet. That’s a great way to keep air out of your tanks and it simplifies the process too. From my experience with the last digester those unseals work great up to about 2psi when they’re new. After they’ve leaked by a bit the number goes down. I could use a prv but I don’t know if they make them that sensitive, and even if they did I don’t think it will be as reliable as a jar of water and it’ll be harder to see if the prv is being used. Additionally, the water will scrub H2S from the gas it’s releasing into my environment which is very dangerous at low concentrations.

[@cricketol]

@@BiogasUSA any thoughts on using stainless steel fermentation tanks for gas production? also, you can clean them out if the system goes down and you just need to clean it and then rebuild it from scratch also the stainless steel would be able to hold a larger amount of pressure.

[@PapasTortillas]

Great video! I have followed your channel for a while and have finally started to build a digester. I’m going with the ibc tote design from solar city. I appreciate all your videos. I feel like I remember you mentioned hoping to run a car on biogas, did I remember that correctly? Have you experimented with that at all?

[@BiogasUSA]

You do remember that correctly. I still intend to. I have 3 or 4 ideas still about how to get my gas pure enough, but if I’m not able to revive my old digester this will be a setback while I wait for the new digester to mature. I’m glad you enjoyed the video. Thanks for the comment, and let me know if you encounter any issues. I’d love to help you slog through them.

[@PapasTortillas]

@@BiogasUSA awesome! I came across some old videos of a guy named Harold Bate that used chicken manure to generate biogas and ran his old carbonated car on biogas he compressed into a propane bottle. I think that’s super cool. I haven’t seen many diy people using biogas in a newer fuel injected car, however I saw some videos by a guy named Gary Gilmore who used a wood gasifier in his fuel injected ford ranger and it worked burning charcoal. Very interesting and I would love to see someone make it work with biogas. You mentioned over feeding your digester, how much did you feed it? I have read around 1.5 gallons a day of waste for the size I’m trying to build, but I’m not sure how you know how much is too much? Also could you empty your digester and restart it instead of building a new one?

[@BiogasUSA]

@@PapasTortillas from what I have learned recently (since posting my last video on methanogens) there’s a second culture which turns the substrate acidic and somehow makes it bioavailable to the methanogenic archaea. So I guess over feeding makes the substrate too acidic and the methanogens shut down in the low PH. I kept feeding through winter even though the temp fell drastically. I was keeping my garage at 50F. I guess the first culture (whoever they are) continues working at lower temps and the methanogens slow down. The effluent started to smell horrible. That was my first hint that something was going wrong. Maybe you can know by routinely checking the PH level in your effluent. It should be very close to 7. Most of the internet agrees, under ideal circumstances, I can feed 3/4 gal per day for my 30 gal digester. I could have absolutely dumped and recycled the old digester but I wanted to make some improvements, and I wanted to make this video. I could have also cannibalised almost all of the parts from the old digester, but I wanted to be able to provide links to exactly what I used. Also, I’m still holding out hope I can revive the old one. I dumped 5lbs of lime into it a couple days ago. Fingers crossed.

[@user-tw3ml9nk9k]

Thanks for the videos. Quite educating and unique 👍. What do you intend using as a as an extenal storage system for your gas? I had to shut down my first digester due to inavailability of a gas bag..... Biogas technology is not very common in Nigeria making Biogas accessories very expensive.

[@BiogasUSA]

Thanks for the comment. Watch a few more of my videos. I am filtering it into inner tubes and then compressing it into propane tanks for storage and use. Basically everything is free for me. I used mostly trash.

[@user-tw3ml9nk9k]

@@BiogasUSAYeah I've seen that in some of your videos. But can you use the space above the Slurry level as a permanent gas storage that takes the gas to the burner directly?

[@BiogasUSA]

@@user-tw3ml9nk9k maybe with a different design you could do that. This one will not hold any pressure, and there’s very little volume for gas.