Measurement campaign as part of the IntenseMethane research project
The development of sustainable biogenic methane sources is the goal of the IntenseMethane research project funded by the BMWK. This project is investigating whether gases with high amounts of carbon monoxide and hydrogen can be converted to methane in a biological methanisation stage and how the technical implementation can be designed. For this purpose, a wood gasifier from the company LiPRO was coupled with a dry fermentation plant and the feeding of the synthesis gas produced by the wood gasifier into the fermentation plant was tested.
Most conventional wood gasifier use air as an oxidant which leads to a nitrogen-rich gas (usually around 50 vol.-% nitrogen). Especially when focusing on the material use of this gas, as done in this research project, all resulting products will be diluted by the nitrogen gas. As this limits the usability of these products, the nitrogen must be removed from the product gas at great technical expense. In order to circumvent this problem, an operating mode of the gas generator was developed in the project in close cooperation with the LiPRO company, which does not use air as an oxidant. Instead, a mixture of oxygen and carbon dioxide is used, which means that the nitrogen content in the product gas generated can be almost completely reduced. In April 2023, the new mode of operation was tested and implemented for the first time as part of a measurement campaign. A preliminary evaluation of the data obtained indicates a great potential of this mode of operation. In this way, various stable operating states could be set, which showed an extraordinarily good synthesis gas quality.