Asian Basic and Applied Research Journal

Solid waste can be a curse or a blessing depending on the way it is managed. One way of managing solid waste is to transform the waste to energy generation. The aim of this work is to predict the electricity potential from solid waste generated in university of Ibadan (UI) and university of Abuja (UniAbuja). The composition of solid waste generated in UI and UniAbuja were used to obtain the chemical formulas for the waste. The amounts of methane from the solid waste were determined from the reaction obtained using Buswell and Muller model. The electricity potential from the solid waste was predicted with the aid of empirical correlation based on the volume of methane. The masses of moisture content for the solid waste were 38.20 kg and 13.69 kg for UI and UniAbuja respectively. The chemical formulas with and without sulphur for the solid waste generated in UI were  and  respectively while the chemical formulas with and without sulphur for UniAbuja were and respectively. The theoretical amount of biogas from solid waste generated from UI and UniAbuja were 0.39 m³ / kg waste and 0.64 m³ / kg waste respectively while the actual amounts of methane were 0.15 m³/ kg waste and 0.25 m³/ kg waste respectively. The predicted electricity potential was 1.5 kWh / kg waste for UI and 2.5 kWh / kg waste for UniAbuja. This work has provided a fundamental platform for management of these institutions to formulate policy and tap into the opportunity of generating electricity from waste generated in the institution in order to achieve self-sustainability.