EnviTec Biogas AG boosts bio natural gas market with EnviThan treatment facility
Cooperation with Evonik Industries ensures customers have the best possible gas treatment technology currently available
Lohne -- EnviTec Biogas AG is equipping its EnviThan facilities for upgrading biogas into bio natural gas with membrane modules from Evonik Industries with immediate effect. Unprocessed biogas generated in biogas facilities can be cleaned particularly efficiently using the Essen group’s polymer membranes in order to feed it directly into the natural gas network as high purity biomethane. Using the new technologies biogas facility operators can profit from the advantages foreseen in the revised German Renewable Energies Act (EEG) for the utilization of upgraded biogas.
“We are offering our customers the best developments available on the market for all areas of biogas production. We see the future of bio natural gas production in membrane technology, which is far superior to all previous procedures for processing bio natural gas,” explained Olaf von Lehmden, Chairman of the board (CEO) of EnviTec Biogas AG. “So in Evonik Industries we are pleased to have found a strong partner that in the SEPURAN® Green membrane module has an outstanding technology for producing our bio natural gas EnviThan.”
Unprocessed biogas has to be cleaned of sulphur hydroxide, ammonia and carbon dioxide before being feed into the natural gas network. Previously common procedures such as pressure swing absorption or pressure scrubbing have some significant disadvantages: they need both auxiliary chemicals and energy and they generate waste water that then also has to be cleaned. Gas separation with polymer membranes developed by Evonik Industries provides plant operators with considerable energy and cost efficiency advantages in comparison. For good measure the procedure can be applied very flexibly in both small and large plants.
The new technology, which Evonik has been using to clean methane from unprocessed biogas to more than 98 per cent content in a biogas plant in Austria since the beginning of 2011, uses the different sizes of gas molecules. Because carbon dioxide molecules are smaller than methane molecules, they can penetrate the micropores of the membrane significantly quicker. Thus methane collects on the high pressure side of the membrane while the unwanted components of the biogas pass through.
“The new technology has come at the right time, because we assume that the market for producing bio natural gas will develop rapidly in the next few years,” said von Lehmden. The German government wishes to replace fossil natural gas increasingly with bio natural gas. By 2020 60 billion kilowatt hours and by 2030 around 100 billion kilowatt hours will be generated and fed into the network annually. With the new 2012 EGG combined heat and power unit operators that use processed biogas will receive an increased gas processing bonus on top of electricity payments. Alongside the likelihood that natural gas prices will rise in the next few years this will make the market for bio natural gas more attractive for biogas plant operators.
For example, processing bio natural gas offers considerable potential to plant operators who cannot realise a heating concept which they could sensibly use in a combined heat and power unit with the heat created during conventional biogas conversion into electricity. In comparison: while during pure conversion into electricity only a maximum of 40 per cent of the energy contained in biogas is subsequently available as electricity, when feeding in processed biogas a yield of 90 per cent of the energy content is achieved. “Biomethane is the joker in the energy mix of the future. No other renewable energy is more efficient,” said von Lehmden. “Processed biogas will thus make an important contribution to sustainable and environmentally friendly energy management.“
80 per cent of the natural gas consumed in Germany is still imported. Processed bio natural gas can contribute to covering a high proportion of natural gas consumption from domestic, regrowing raw materials and organic waste material. This will also reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. The reason: burning biomethane only releases the amount of carbon dioxide that the substrates used in generation had previously locked in. In an ideal scenario the result is climate neutral use.
Customer comments
No comments were found for EnviTec Biogas AG boosts bio natural gas market with EnviThan treatment facility. Be the first to comment!