Biogas, generally produced by anaerobic digestion of organic (waste) material, is a renewable low-carbon source of methane. A techno-economic analysis, performed jointly by two research teams at Ghent University, the Laboratory for Chemical Technology (Lukas Buelens, Vladimir V. Galvita, Guy B. Marin, Kevin M. Van Geem) and the Center for Microbial Ecology & Technology (Kristof Verbeeck, Korneel Rabaey), shows that the production of hydrogen, heat or electricity from biomethane would require either financial support or a strong increase in product revenues. On the other hand, production of carbon monoxide or synthesis gas from biomethane could already be economically viable today. The authors propose to overcome the challenge of transporting bio based methane from delocalized small scale producers to localized large scale industrial sites by upgrading the biogas to biomethane and subsequently injecting it into the existing natural gas grid. Super-dry reforming of CH4, an advanced chemical looping approach using up to three CO2 molecules per CH4, then allows for intensified production of CO as feedstock for synthesis of platform chemicals and fuels.
For more information, read the full article: http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2018/ee/c8ee01059e#!divAbs...