a) In Fig 3 , the increase in gas production per unit mass
of feed from the 5th day onwards can be attributed to
the effects of a more settled bacteria culture due to
increase in feed, the digestion of any undigested waste
due to compounding since the reaction takes between
24 and 36 hours to complete and due to improper
mixing in the digester.
b) In Fig 4, a significant drop after not feeding for 5 days
was observed. This shows that the plant can go
without being fed for 3- 4 days without significant
loss in performance.
c) In Fig 5, it is clear that feeding the plant with whole
food results in large under utilization of the plant as it
takes much longer to digest. Hand crushed food works
good with foods that can be crushed down to paste by
hand but foods like chapattis show a significant drop
in volume of gas generated unless they are blended
using a blender.
d) In Fig 6, a noticeable dip in the amount of gas
generated per unit mass of feed is observed. The
bacteria culture is negatively affected due to irregular
feed and missed feed.
e) A consistent drop in production is observed from the
8th day of underfeeding (Fig 7). The gas production dropped to a minimum of 0.2 m3 from the regular 0.25 m3 in a period of 14 days.