Biogas Production and Applications in the Sustainable Energy Transition

Abstract

Biogas is competitive, viable, and generally a sustainable energy resource due to abundant supply of cheap feedstocks and availability of a wide range of biogas applications in heating, power generation, fuel, and raw materials for further processing and production of sustainable chemicals including hydrogen, and carbon dioxide and biofuels. The capacity of biogas based power has been growing rapidly for the past decade with global biogas based electricity generation capacity increasing from 65 GW in 2010 to 120 GW in 2019 representing a 90% growth. This study presents the pathways for use of biogas in the energy transition by application in power generation and production of fuels. Diesel engines, petrol or gasoline engines, turbines, microturbines, and Stirling engines offer feasible options for biogas to electricity production as prme movers. Biogas fuel can be used in both spark ignition (petrol) and compression ignition engines (diesel) with varying degrees of modifications on conventional internal combustion engines. In internal combustion engines, the dual-fuel mode can be used with little or no modification compared to full engine conversion to gas engines which may require major modifications. Biogas can also be used in fuel cells for direct conversion to electricity and raw material for hydrogen and transport fuel production which is a significant pathway to sustainable energy development. Enriched biogas or biomethane can be containerized or injected to gas supply mains for use as renewable natural gas. Biogas can be used directly for cooking and lighting as well as for power generation and for production of Fischer-Tropsch (FT) fuels. Upgraded biogas/biomethane which can also be used to process methanol fuel. Compressed biogas (CBG) and liquid biogas (LBG) can be reversibly made from biomethane for various direct and indirect applications as fuels for transport and power generation. Biogas can be used in processes like combined heat and power generation from biogas (CHP), trigeneration, and compression to Bio-CNG and bio-LPG for cleaned biogas/biomethane. Fuels are manufactured from biogas by cleaning, and purification before reforming to syngas, and partial oxidation to produce methanol which can be used to make gasoline. Syngas is used in production of alcohols, jet fuels, diesel, and gasoline through the Fischer-Tropsch process.