Monitoring of Small-Scale Biogas Production

The big industrial scale AD biogas plants have their own monitoring systems for analysing the quantities, pressure, temperature, CH4, O2, etc. on a real time basis, but they still rely heavily on external labs sending back the sample's results (e.g. Nutrients: P,K,Cu,Zn,S,Ca,Fe,Mo,Mn,Ni,Na,Se,Co,B or Process: Dry Matter, Volatile Solids (oDM), Ammoniacal Nitrogen, speciated VFA's, Total Carbon & Total Nitrogen). The critical issue is the reaction time to monitored results, and the potential consequences of a delayed action - it is only the experienced operator who can spot any difficulties arising and who could therefore react by changing feedstock tonnages, additivies, balancing the temperature, etc.
Small-scale biogas plants at UK farms or in developing countries don't have any monitoring systems (except for biogas flow and feedstock meters) and their operational staff are often untrained, so costly mistakes happen often.
This study's objective would be to develop a mobile, remote monitoring device that could be used at these biogas plants without physical supervision (or with unskilled help). The other area of research could be determining the ways to increase the efficiency of the reactor by external temperature control (waste heat, solar thermal) and varying feedstock additives (or thermal hydrolysis). The option of developing various technologies treating the digestate as a valuable fertiliser or fuel substitute remains open at the time of filling this form.