From trash to gas

[raintrejo]

H, I wanted to know how long does it take for the balloons to fill up?
Also should the bottles be inside or outside,

[theborg]

Hello, welcome to science buddies. I'm assuming you are performing the experiment from the project suggestions on the SB site.

For your questions:
1) How fast the balloons will fill up? The answer is "it depends". Each will fill up at a different rate based on the decay rate and amount of methane produced by the biomass in each bottle. However, you should start seeing results right away (within 24 hrs). Keep in mind, however, the objective is to compare the amount of gas produced by the different biomass mixtures over a given timeframe vs. filling the balloons up.

2) should they be inside or outside. This shouldn't matter as long as all the bottles are in the same environment. I would think that exposures to the sun would cause the decay rate of the biomasses in each bottle to accelerate, but not sure. As a variation of the experiment, you could have 2 identical experiments, one in the dark and one in the sun and see if it makes a difference over the same timeframe in the production of biogass. Does one mixture of biomass perform better in sunlight? In the dark?

Let us know if this answers your questions, or if you have additional ones.