Review: recent advances in biogas purifying technologies

Biomethane production through biogas upgrading is a promising renewable energy for some industries which could be part of the equilibrium needed with fossil fuels consumption to achieve a sustainable society. This paper presents a comprehensive list of biogas upgrading technologies focused on carbon dioxide removal as well as recent advances reported by researcher with wide expertise in this topic. Additionally, an extensive costs–performance comparison among the technologies studied is discussed. Among the different alternatives, chemical scrubbing stood out to achieve high biomethane purities while cryogenic technologies proved to be effective against methane losses. Regarding the different costs, water scrubbing and membrane separation seem to be the most affordable techniques.     

Ultrasound pretreatment of filamentous algal biomass for enhanced biogas production

The filamentous alga Hydrodictyon reticulatum harvested from a bench-scale wastewater treatment pond was used to evaluate biogas production after ultrasound pretreatment. The effects of ultrasound pretreatment at a range of 10–5000 J/mL were tested with harvested H. reticulatum. Cell disruption by ultrasound was successful and showed a higher degree of disintegration at a higher applied energy. The range of 10–5000 J/mL ultrasound was able to disintegrated H. reticulatum and the soluble COD was increased from 250 mg/L to 1000 mg/L at 2500 J/mL. The disintegrated algal biomass was digested for biogas production in batch experiments. Both cumulative gas generation and volatile solids reduction data were obtained during the digestion. Cell disintegration due to ultrasound pretreatment increased the specific biogas production and degradation rates. Using the ultrasound approach, the specific methane production at a dose of 40 J/mL increased up to 384 mL/g-VS fed that was 2.3 times higher than the untreated sample. For disintegrated samples, the volatile solids reduction was greater with increased energy input, and the degradation increased slightly to 67% at a dose of 50 J/mL. The results also indicate that disintegration of the algal cells is the essential step for efficient anaerobic digestion of algal biomass.     

Production costs and operative margins in electric energy generation from biogas. Full-scale case studies in Italy

The purpose of this study was to observe the economic sustainability of three different biogas full scale plants, fed with different organic matrices: energy crops (EC), manure, agro-industrial (Plants B and C) and organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) (Plant A). The plants were observed for one year and total annual biomass feeding, biomass composition and biomass cost (€ Mg^?1), initial investment cost and plant electric power production were registered. The unit costs of biogas and electric energy (€ Sm^?3_biogas, € kW h^?1_EE) were differently distributed, depending on the type of feed and plant. Plant A showed high management/maintenance cost for OFMSW treatment (0.155 € Sm^?3_biogas, 45% of total cost), Plant B suffered high cost for EC supply (0.130 € Sm^?3_biogas, 49% of total cost) and Plant C showed higher impact on the total costs because of the depreciation charge (0.146 € Sm^?3_biogas, 41% of total costs). The breakeven point for the tariff of electric energy, calculated for the different cases, resulted in the range 120–170 € MW h^?1_EE, depending on fed materials and plant scale. EC had great impact on biomass supply costs and should be reduced, in favor of organic waste and residues; plant scale still heavily influences the production costs. The EU States should drive incentives in dependence of these factors, to further develop this still promising sector.     

规模化养牛场牛粪污综合利用研究

利用牛粪生产沼气,并将副产物有效利用是处理牛粪污的有效途径,为提高牛粪厌氧发酵的产气效率和副产物的利用率,整体工艺采用牛粪发酵前固液分离,固体进行好氧发酵回填牛卧床,分离液进行厌氧-好氧发酵,厌氧发酵产生沼气为系统增温,最后液体通过人工湿地处理达标排放。结果表明:对牛粪进行发酵前固液分离,降低了物料的粘度,利于微生物的传质,可以取得较好的产气效果,沼气通过沼气燃烧炉转化为热能为系统增温降低了其他能源的供给,同时湿地的利用也有效地改善了养牛场周边环境,为牛粪污生产沼气工程提供新思路。     

Treatment of digestate from a co-digestion biogas plant by means of vacuum evaporation: Tests for process optimization and environmental sustainability

Vacuum evaporation consists in the boiling of a liquid substrate at negative pressure, at a temperature lower than typical boiling temperature at atmospheric conditions. Condensed vapor represents the so called condensate, while the remaining substrate represents the concentrate.This technology is derived from other sectors and is mainly dedicated to the recovery of chemicals from industrial by-products, while it has not been widely implemented yet in the field of agricultural digestate treatment. The present paper relates on experimental tests performed in pilot-scale vacuum evaporation plants (0.100 and 0.025 m³), treating filtered digestate (liquid fraction of digestate filtered by a screw-press separator). Digestate was produced by a 1 MW_e anaerobic digestion plant fed with swine manure, corn silage and other biomasses. Different system and process configurations were tested (single-stage and two-stage, with and without acidification) with the main objectives of assessing the technical feasibility and of optimizing process parameters for an eventual technology transfer to full scale systems.The inputs and outputs of the process were subject to characterization and mass and nutrients balances were determined.The vacuum evaporation process determined a relevant mass reduction of digestate.The single stage configuration determined the production of a concentrate, still in liquid phase, with a total solid (TS) mean concentration of 15.0%, representing, in terms of mass, 20.2% of the input; the remaining 79.8% was represented by condensate. The introduction of the second stage allowed to obtain a solid concentrate, characterized by a content of TS of 59.0% and representing 5.6% of initial mass.Nitrogen balance was influenced by digestate pH: in order to limit the stripping of ammonia and its transfer to condensate it was necessary to reduce the pH. At pH 5, 97.5% of total nitrogen remained in the concentrate. This product was characterized by very high concentrations of total Kjeldhal nitrogen (TKN), 55,000 mg/kg as average.Condensate, instead, represented 94.4% of input mass, containing 2.5% of TKN. This fraction could be discharged into surface water, after purification to meet the criteria imposed by Italian regulation. Most likely, condensate could be used as dilution water for digestion input, for cleaning floor and surfaces of animal housings or for crop irrigation.The research showed the great effectiveness of the vacuum evaporation process, especially in the two stage configuration with acidification. In fact, the concentration of nutrients in a small volume determines easier transportation and reduction of related management costs. In full scale plants energy consumption is estimated to be 5–8 kWh_e/m³ of digestate and 350 kWh_t/m³ of evaporated water.     

Phosphorus recovery from biogas fermentation liquid by Ca–Mg loaded biochar

Shortage in phosphorus (P) resources and P wastewater pollution is considered as a serious problem worldwide. The application of modified biochar for P recovery from wastewater and reuse of recovered P as agricultural fertilizer is a preferred process. This work aims to develop a calcium and magnesium loaded biochar (Ca–Mg/biochar) application for P recovery from biogas fermentation liquid. The physico-chemical characterization, adsorption efficiency, adsorption selectivity, and postsorption availability of Ca-Mg/biochar were investigated. The synthesized Ca–Mg/biochar was rich in organic functional groups and in CaO and MgO nanoparticles. With the increase in synthesis temperature, the yield decreased, C content increased, H content decreased, N content remained the same basically, and BET surface area increased. The P adsorption of Ca–Mg/biochar could be accelerated by nano-CaO and nano-MgO particles and reached equilibrium after 360 min. The process was endothermic, spontaneous, and showed an increase in the disorder of the solid–liquid interface. Moreover, it could be fitted by the Freundlich model. The maximum P adsorption amounts were 294.22, 315.33, and 326.63 mg/g. The P adsorption selectivity of Ca–Mg/biochar could not be significantly influenced by the typical pH level of biogas fermentation liquid. The nano-CaO and nano-MgO particles of Ca–Mg/biochar could reduce the negative interaction effects of coexisting ions. The P releasing amounts of postsorption Ca–Mg/biochar were in the order of Ca–Mg/B600 > Ca–Mg/B450 > Ca–Mg/B300. Results revealed that postsorption Ca–Mg/biochar can continually release P and is more suitable for an acid environment.     

水葫芦厌氧发酵工程化应用研究

在实验室进行了接种率、破碎程度和温度等对水葫芦厌氧发酵产气率的影响研究.结果表明:水葫芦在中温35℃下,水葫芦和接种污泥的最佳接种率为1:1(总固体物质比),经简单切分后产气率最高,原料产气率为0.540 m3/d(以每千克固体含量计,下同);高温消化与中温消化相比,产气率无明显优势.在实验室研究基础上,对中国农村地区原有的沼气发酵工艺进行适当的改进,设计构建了5 m3 15 m3(酸化池 产气池)两级反应池,该反应池在夏季常温条件下运行良好,80 d的平均原料产气率达0.305 m3/d.     

Influence of H2S and NH3 on biogas dry reforming using Ni catalyst: a study on single and synergetic effect

● NH₃ in biogas had a slight inhibitory effect on dry reforming. ● Coexistence of H₂S and NH₃ led to faster decline of biogas conversion. ● Regeneration was effective for catalysts deactivated under synergetic effect. Biogas is a renewable biomass energy source mainly composed of CH₄ and CO₂. Dry reforming is a promising technology for the high-value utilization of biogas. Some impurity gases in biogas can not be completely removed after pretreatment, which may affect the performance of dry reforming. In this study, the influence of typical impurities H₂S and NH₃ on dry reforming was studied using Ni/MgO catalyst. The results showed that low concentration of H₂S in biogas could cause serious deactivation of catalyst. Characterization results including EDS, XPS and TOF-SIMS confirmed the adsorption of sulfur on the catalyst surface, which was the cause of catalyst poisoning. We used air calcination method to regenerate the sulfur-poisoned catalysts and found that the regeneration temperature higher than 500 °C could help catalyst recover the original activity. NH₃ in the concentration range of 50–10000 ppm showed a slight inhibitory effect on biogas dry reforming. The decline rate of biogas conversion efficiency increased with the increase of NH₃ concentration. This was related to the reduction of oxygen activity on catalyst surface caused by NH₃. The synergetic effect of H₂S and NH₃ in biogas was investigated. The results showed that biogas conversion decreased faster under the coexistence of H₂S and NH₃ than under the effect of H₂S alone, so as the surface oxygen activity of catalyst. Air calcination regeneration could also recover the activity of the deactivated catalyst under the synergetic effect of H₂S and NH₃.     

Enhanced anaerobic treatment of CSTR-digested effluent from chicken manure: The effect of ammonia inhibition

The effect of ammonia inhibition was evaluated during the enhanced anaerobic treatment of digested effluent from a 700 m³ chicken-manure continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR). A 12.3 L internal circulation (IC) reactor inoculated with an anaerobic granular sludge and operated at 35 ± 1 °C was employed for the investigation. With a corresponding organic loading rate of 1.5-3.5 kg-COD/m³ d over a hydraulic retention time of 1.5 d, a maximum volumetric biogas production rate of 1.2 m³/m³ d and TCOD (total COD) removal efficiency ranging from 70% to 80% was achieved. However, the continual increase in the influent TAN content led to ammonia inhibition in the methanogenesis system. The SCOD/TAN (soluble COD/total ammonia nitrogen) ratio was presented to be the key controlling factor for the anaerobic treatment of semi-digested chicken manure, and further validation through shock loading and ammonia inhibition experiments was conducted. The threshold value of the SCOD/TAN ratio was determined to be 2.4 (corresponding to a TAN of 1250 mg/L) at an influent pH of 8.5-9.     

Techno-economic evaluation of ultrasound and thermal pretreatments for enhanced anaerobic digestion of municipal waste activated sludge

To enhance the anaerobic digestion of municipal waste-activated sludge (WAS), ultrasound, thermal, and ultrasound + thermal (combined) pretreatments were conducted using three ultrasound specific energy inputs (1000, 5000, and 10,000 kJ/kg TSS) and three thermal pretreatment temperatures (50, 70 and 90 °C). Prior to anaerobic digestion, combined pretreatments significantly improved volatile suspended solid (VSS) reduction by 29-38%. The largest increase in methane production (30%) was observed after 30 min of 90 °C pretreatment followed by 10,000 kJ/kg TSS ultrasound pretreatment. Combined pretreatments improved the dimethyl sulfide (DMS) removal efficiency by 42-72% but did not show any further improvement in hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) removal when compared with ultrasound and thermal pretreatments alone. Economic analysis showed that combined pretreatments with 1000 kJ/kg TSS specific energy and differing thermal pretreatments (50-90 °C) can reduce operating costs by $44-66/ton dry solid when compared to conventional anaerobic digestion without pretreatments.