Methane production from syngas using a trickle-bed reactor setup

Nabin Aryal; Mikkel Odde; Cecilie Bøgeholdt Petersen; Lars Ditlev Mørck Ottosen; Michael Vedel Wegener Kofoed

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2021.125183

Methane production from syngas using a trickle-bed reactor setup

Bioresour Technol. 2021 Aug:333:125183. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2021.125183. Epub 2021 Apr 16.

Authors

Nabin Aryal¹, Mikkel Odde¹, Cecilie Bøgeholdt Petersen¹, Lars Ditlev Mørck Ottosen¹, Michael Vedel Wegener Kofoed¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of Biological and Chemical Engineering, Hangøvej 2, DK-8200 Aarhus N, Denmark.

PMID: 33895671
DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2021.125183

Abstract

Syngas from gasification of waste biomass is a mixture of carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO₂), and hydrogen (H₂), which can be utilized for the synthesis of biofuels such as methane (CH₄). The aim of the study research work was to demonstrate how syngas could be methanated and upgraded to natural gas quality (biomethane) in a fed-batch trickle-bed reactor system using either manure - (AD-M) or sludge-based (AD-WW) inoculum as microbial basis. The methanated syngas had a high concentration of CO₂ and did not fulfil the criteria for natural gas quality biomethane. Further upgrading of syngas to biomethane could be achieved simultaneously in the same reactors by addition of exogenous H_2, resulting in CH₄ concentrations up to 91.0 ± 3.5% (AD-WW) and 95.3 ± 1.0% (AD-M). Microbial analysis indicated that the communities differed between AD-M and AD-WW demonstrating functional redundancy among the microbial communities of different inocula.

Keywords: Biomethane; Hydrogen; Syngas methanation; Trickle-bed reactor; Upgrading to natural gas quality.

MeSH terms

Biofuels*
Bioreactors
Carbon Dioxide / analysis
Hydrogen
Methane*
Sewage

Substances

Biofuels
Sewage
Carbon Dioxide
Hydrogen
Methane