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Overview

Objectives/Goals The objective is to see if common kitchen waste products: potatoes, orange peels, and cabbage, will produce methane gas, and if so, which will produce the most. Methods/Materials I obtained all items needed. Then, I processed and blended all kitchen waste products separately and added five cups of water to each. I opened up the air flow to the tubes with a tire valve tool. Then, using a cake decorating tool, I put the liquid separately into six large tire inner-tubes, having two tubes per product with 3 1/8 cups water and 2 3/8 cups product in each tube. I put the tubes in a room at regular room temperature for two days. I then put them in a room with a radiant room heater at 86 degrees Fahrenheit for one month and four days, shaking the tubes every few days to keep the product mixed. I then took the tubes outside and opened the cap, putting my thumb over opening so that nothing could escape. I hooked one end of the fuel hose to the campstove, and hooked the other end to the tubes, one by one. I squeezed the tube to get the methane gas flowing up the hose to the stove with a match at the stove. When the fire flamed up and was blue, it meant there was methane gas. I measured the amout of time the methane gas burned for each tube. Results For the orange peels, the methane gas burned 7 seconds for the first tube, and 9 seconds for the second tube, giving it an average of 8 seconds. For the cabbage, the methane gas burned 11 seconds for the first tube, and 9 seconds for the second tube, giving it an average of 10 seconds. For the potatoes, the methane gas burned 35 seconds for the first tube, and 12 seconds for the second tube, giving it an average of 23.5 seconds. Conclusions/Discussion I conclude that my hypothesis was correct. The potatoes did produce the most methane gas. The orange peels produced the least amount of methane gas, but its average was only two seconds below the average of what the cabbage produced. This suggests that we may want to explore using our common kitchen waste products as an alternative fuel source.

Competition history

• CSEF 2003 Environmental Engineering · Entry J0804

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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