Data on energy and economic evaluation and microbial assessment of anaerobic co-digestion of fruit rind of Telfairia occidentalis (Fluted pumpkin) and poultry manure

The data described in this article was obtained in an experiment designed for the generation of biogas from the anaerobic co-digestion of Telfairia occidentalis (Fluted pumpkin) fruit rind and poultry manure both of which currently constitute an environmental nuisance in the localities where they are found. The data presented in this article is on the use of combined heat and power (CHP) system to assess the energy and economic feasibility of applying thermo-alkali pretreatment procedures to one of the substrates (Fluted pumpkin) prior to anaerobic digestion. Also, the microbial characterization and succession pattern of important microbes during the anaerobic digestion process was evaluated and the data reported in this paper.


a b s t r a c t
The data described in this article was obtained in an experiment designed for the generation of biogas from the anaerobic codigestion of Telfairia occidentalis (Fluted pumpkin) fruit rind and poultry manure both of which currently constitute an environmental nuisance in the localities where they are found. The data presented in this article is on the use of combined heat and power (CHP) system to assess the energy and economic feasibility of applying thermo-alkali pretreatment procedures to one of the substrates (Fluted pumpkin) prior to anaerobic digestion. Also, the microbial characterization and succession pattern of important microbes during the anaerobic digestion process was evaluated and the data reported in this paper.
& The data is available within the article body

Values of the data
The data presented in this article reveals the energy and economic evaluation of the anaerobic codigestion of fruit rind of Telfairia occidentalis (Fluted Pumpkin) and Poultry manure for biogas generation The data will serve as a precursor for further research on the economic assessment of biomass pretreatment prior to anaerobic digestion processes The data give further exposure on the necessity and feasibility of pretreatment of biomass prior to anaerobic digestion.
More robust heat and power systems can be used to further explore the generated data from this study in order to apply the processes in industrial scale experiments.

Data
The combined heat and power (CHP) system was used to assess the energy balance and the economic feasibility of applying thermal and alkaline pre-treatment to T. occidentalis fruit rind using a 50 and 30% thermal and electrical efficiencies respectively (Table 1). Therefore, to determine the thermal energy requirement (TER) for thermal and alkaline pre-treatments of T. occidentalis fruit rind, the energy needed to raise the temperature of 35 g TS L À 1 T. occidentalis fruit rind mixture from 25 to 55°C was determined using the specific heat of water i.e. 4.18 kJ kg À 1°C À 1 in order to evaluate the specific heat of the mixture while neglecting heat loss [1][2][3].
To assess the electrical energy, only the electric energy used for the substrate mixing was considered neglecting the energy used during mechanical treatment since this was also done for the experiment without thermal and alkaline pre-treatment [4]. Table 2 shows the heat balance of different biomass previously anaerobically digested with thermal and alkaline pre-treatments procedures [5][6][7][8][9].
In the co-digestion of Telfairia occidentalis fruit rind and poultry manure, various aerobic and anaerobes bacteria, fungi and methanogens were isolated and characterized (Table 3).

Materials and method
Data was obtained from the evaluation of pretreatment application to fruit rind of Telfairia occidentalis and the possibility of gaining back the investment (obtaining of chemicals and heat) into the pretreatment procedure through the sale of additional energy gained.

Experimental design
A simple computational equation was used to first determine the thermal energy required (TER) in kWh t -1 TS for raising the temperature of one ton TS of T. occidentalis fruit rind from 25 to 55°C during pre-treatment [14][15][16].

Microbial enumeration
The aerobic organisms (Bacteria and fungi) associated with the fermenting substrates were isolated and enumerated weekly using standard methods [17][18][19]. Facultative anaerobes were serially isolated using specialized media in an anoxic condition at 37°C for 5 to 7 days as earlier reported [20,21]. Confirmation of the presumptive isolates was done with corresponding rapid Analytical Profile Index (API) kits [22] while a basal medium was used for identifying methanogens [23,24].

Economic evaluation
Cost of NaOH (є t À 1 TS) Remark:*¼ difference of thermal energies produced by the pretreated experiment minus the untreated; # ¼difference between the thermal energy gain and the thermal energy requirement for the thermo-alkaline pretreatment; a $ ¼difference of electricity energies produced by pretreated experiment minus the untreated.

Statistical data analysis
The paired sample t-tests were conducted to determine the significant difference in the means of three replicates.