The discovery of anaerobic digestion dates back to the seventeenth century when Plinius discovered lights under the swamps. It was no longer than 1630 when Van Helmont found flammable gases evolving from decaying organic matter (Abbasi et al. in a brief history of anaerobic digestion and “biogas”. In: Biogas energy. SpringerBriefs in Environmental Science. Springer, New York, 2012). In 1776, Volta learned that marsh gas formed an explosive mixture with air, and its quantity was governed by the amount of decaying material (Schon in Numerical modelling of anaerobic digestion processes in agricultural biogas plants, 2009]. However, a breakthrough was established in 1804 by Dalton, who determined methane’s chemical composition. Henry, in 1806, concluded that methane was much like the marsh gas that Volta defined (Bond and Templeton in Energy Sustain Develop 15(4):347–354, 2011). Later, in 1808, Sir Humphry Davy discovered methane from cattle manure. These early discoveries led to the industrialization of anaerobic digestion. Later, in 1856, Reiset observed methane liberation from decaying piles of manure and recommended studying and thoroughly understanding the decomposition process of organic materials, “In the world, the first large anaerobic digester plant was established in 1859, leper colony, Matunga, Bombay, India”.