An-Najah Staff

This thesis describes biogas energy technology which is heavily used in China, India and Brazil. The biogas technology is rarely used in Arab countries. Palestine has a good potential for biogas production. One Palestinian family living in rural areas owns at least three cows where each cow gives 12-16 kg dung per day. This amount will produce 24.5 kg biogas per month which is equivalent to one C4H10 gas bottle, since heat value of CH4 is ½ heat value of C4H10. Some biogas production experiments were implemented in Palestine under the conditions: temperature = 350C, pH value = 6-7, and retention time = 10-60 days. A floating drum digester in Tulkarem with a volume of 14m3, and with a daily supply of 50L slurry over a period of 40 days have produced 1.17m3 /day of biogas (0.84 kg biogas/day). Economic evaluation of this digester shows that the cost of 1 m3 biogas is 1.5NIS. The recommended family digester (floating drum digester) with 3.5 m3 volume will save 4180NIS per year and its simple payback period is less than one year.