Environmentally Friendly Waste System

By now, the prototype is nearly done. We are planning to do the water test and run the first run on the prototype tomorrow. We decided not to have the vacuum pump incorporated into the design, it was hard finding one within our budget. Because this project is also have to take into consideration those in the third world countries.


Replacing the vacuum pump would be an ignition valve at the digester. The reason behind this is simple. According to bernoulli’s equation and assuming a frictionless pipe, most of the methane should travel into the methane capture system due to its height. To ensure that all, if not most of the methane is transferred over, the ignition valve is opened and lit. If there is no flame, it shows that there is no methane present.

Apart from this is the addition of a rotameter at the ignition valve on the methane capture system. This is for us to read the flow rate of methane gas coming out as we open the valve and light it up. Calculating the amount of time which the flame burns multiplying it by the flow rate, we obtain the amount of methane gas produced. Scaling up, we can counter check to see if the original theoretical calculation of methane was right.