Laboratory facilities

With 4 biogas installations, made to scale, experiments can be conducted which exactly simulate the conditions in a real biogas installation. These test installations are made from transparent PVC and contain supply and drainage systems for substrate, a mixing system and gas storage. Furthermore reliable measurements of the gas production can be made.

Momentary in two of these installations run prolonged tests to make it possible to ferment pure chicken manure and straw. By appliance of a certain method we have already succeeded in the fermentation of pure straw. The fermentation of pure chicken manure is still in the testing stage.  Momentary a percentage of 50% chicken manure in the input has been achieved.

The other two installations are use to conduct tests for clients with specific needs, such as the fermentation of food or slaughter house waste. These test are used to test, at a lab scale, if a certain input can be fermented properly, before the building of the installation. These tests take at least three months.

Besides the scaled biogas installations HoSt has a serial batch experiment set-up, which is used to determine the gas production of the organic residual current. This is a simple test which only determines the gas production for that specific current and does not determine if the currents is suited for a certain menu. The result of the test is a good indicator of  fermentability of a product.