Trace compounds of biogas from different biogas production plants

Biogas composition and variation in three different biogas production plants were studied to provide information pertaining to its potential use as biofuel. Methane, carbon dioxide, oxygen, nitrogen, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and sulphur compounds were measured in samples of biogases from a landfill, sewage treatment plant sludge digester and farm biogas plant. Methane content ranged from 48% to 65%, carbon dioxide from 36% to 41% and nitrogen from <1% to 17%. Oxygen content in all three gases was <1%. The highest methane content occurred in the gas from the sewage digester while the lowest methane and highest nitrogen contents were found in the landfill gas during winter. The amount of total volatile organic compounds (TVOCs) varied from 5 to 268 mg m⁻³, and was lowest in the biogas from the farm biogas plant. Hydrogen sulphide and other sulphur compounds occurred in landfill gas and farm biogas and in smaller amounts in the sewage digester gas. Organic silicon compounds were also found in the landfill and sewage digester gases. To conclude, the biogases in the different production plants varied, especially in trace compound content. This should be taken into account when planning uses for biogas.     

A novel combined cycle with synthetic utilization of coal and natural gas

 In this paper, a novel combined cycle with synthetic utilization of coal and natural gas is proposed, in which the burning of coal provides thermal energy to the methane/steam reforming reaction. The syngas fuel, generated by the reforming reaction, is directly provided to the gas turbine as fuel. The reforming process with coal firing has been investigated based on the concept of energy level, and the equations has been derived to disclosing the mechanism of the cascade utilization of chemical energy of natural gas and coal in the reforming process with coal firing. Through the synthetic utilization of natural gas and coal, the exergy destruction of the combustion of syngas is decreased obviously compared with the direct combustion of natural gas and coal. As a result, the overall thermal efficiency of the new cycle reaches 52.9%, as energy supply by methane is about twice as much as these of coal. With the same consumption of natural gas and coal the new cycle can generate about 6% more power than the reference cycles (the combined cycle and the steam power plant). The promising results obtained here provide a new way to utilize natural gas and coal more efficiently and economically by synthetic utilization.     

Influence of H2 on the response of lean premixed CH4 flames to high strained flows

A combined experimental and numerical investigation on the effects of H₂ addition to lean-premixed CH₄ flames in highly strained counterflow fields (with strain rates up to 8000 s⁻¹) using preheated flows indicate significant enhancement of lean flammability limits and extinction strain rates for relatively small amounts of H₂ addition. Numerical modeling of the counterflow opposed jet configuration used in this study indicated extinction strain rates which were within 5% of experimentally measured values for equivalence ratios ranging from 0.75 to less than 0.4. Both experimental and numerical results indicate that increasing H₂ in the fuel significantly increases flame speeds and thus extinction strain rates. Furthermore, increasing H₂ decreases the dependency of extinction equivalence ratio on the strain rate of the flow. For all of the mixtures investigated, extinction temperatures depend primarily on equivalence ratio and not fuel composition for the range of H₂ content studied, which suggests that extinction can be correlated to flame temperature and O₂ concentration. Nonetheless, H₂ addition greatly increases the maximum allowable strain rate before extinction temperatures are reached. Inspection of the model-predicted species profiles suggest that the enhancement of CH₄ burning rates with H₂ addition is driven by early H₂ breakdown increasing radical production rates early in the flame zone to enhance CH₄ ignition under conditions where otherwise CH₄ combustion might be prone to undergo extinction.     

3D modeling of anode-supported planar SOFC with internal reforming of methane

Deposition of carbon on conventional anode catalysts and formation of large temperature gradients along the cell are the main barriers for implementing internal reforming in solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) systems. Mathematical modeling is an essential tool to evaluate the effectiveness of the strategies to overcome these problems. In the present work, a three-dimensional model for a planar internal reforming SOFC is developed. A co-flow system with no pre-reforming, methane fuel utilization of 75%, voltage of 0.7 V and current density of 0.65 A cm⁻² was used as the base case. The distributions of both temperature and gas composition through the gas channels and PEN (positive electrode/electrolyte/negative electrode) structure were studied using the developed model. The results identified the most susceptible areas for carbon formation and thermal stress according to the methane to steam ratio and temperature gradients, respectively. The effects of changing the inlet gas composition through recycling were also investigated. Recycling of the anode exhaust gas, at an optimum level of 60% for the conditions studied, has the potential to significantly decrease the temperature gradients and reduce the carbon formation at the anode, while maintaining a high current density.     

The influence of methane/argon plasma composition on the formation of the hydrogenated amorphous carbon films

The quality of the a-C:H films was particularly correlated with the mixed ratio of methane/argon plasma. For a constant supply of energy and flowing rate, the optical emission from H_α intensity linearly increased with the addition of methane in argon plasma, while that from intensities of radiation of diatmoic radicals (CH^?and C₂^?) exponentially decreased. For the a-C:H films, the added methane in argon plasma tended to raise the quantity of hydrogenated carbon or sp³ C-H structure, which exponentially decreased the nano-hardness and friction coefficient of the films. In contrast, the electric resistance of the films enlarged dramatically with the increase of the methane content in argon plasma. It is therefore advantageous to balance the mechanical properties and electrical resistance of the a-C:H film by adjusting plasma composition in the course of the film-growing process.     

Study of cracking of methane for hydrogen production using concentrated solar energy

In this study, the cracking phenomenon of methane taking place in a cylindrical cavity of 16 cm in diameter and 40 cm in length under the heat of concentrated solar radiation without any catalyst is analysed. Three cases have been chosen; in all cases the primary phase contains methane and hydrogen gases. In the first case, we consider two phases; the secondary phase is a homogeneous carbon black powder with 50 nm of diameter; in the second case we have three phases where the two secondary phases are a particles powder with two diameters 20 and 80 nm and finally, a third case of five phases with a powder of four different diameters 20, 40, 60 and 80 nm. The low Reynolds K-ε turbulence model was applied. A calculation code "ANSYS FLUENT" is used to simulate the cracking phenomena where an Eulerian – Eulerian model is applied. The choice of several diameters greatly increases the calculation time but it approaches more of the physical reality of the radiation by these particles during the cracking. Results have shown that increasing the number of diameters gives higher cracking rates; the case of the powder of 4 different diameters gives the highest cracking rate. A parametric study as a function of the inlet velocity, carbon particle diameters and the intensity of solar radiation is realized. For the cracking heat, provided by the choice of the two concentrators of 5 and 16 MW/m² used in this simulation, the CH₄ inlet velocity is a decisive parameter for the cracking rate. Any increase in the inlet velocity requires more heat and this leads to a decrease in the cracking rate. For a velocity not exceeding 0.177 m/s (i.e. 0.3 L/min), both solar concentrations give the same amount of hydrogen produced. These quantities of hydrogen obtained reach maximum values for an inlet flow rate of CH₄ between 0.58 L/min (i.e. 0.34 m/s) and 0.62 L/min (i.e. 0.3655 m/s) for both reactors. The results are interpreted and compared with experimental work.     

Anaerobic batch digestion of solid potato waste alone and in combination with sugar beet leaves

The objective of this study was to characterise anaerobic batch biodegradation of potato waste alone and when co-digested with sugar beet leaves. The effects of increasing concentration of potato waste expressed as percentage of total solids (TS) and the initial inoculum-to-substrate ratio (ISR) on methane yield and productivity were investigated. The ISRs studied were in the range 9.0–0.25 and increasing proportions of potato waste from 10% to 80% of TS. A maximum methane yield of 0.32 l CH₄/g VS_degraded was obtained at 40% of TS and an ISR of 1.5. A methane content of up to 84% was obtained at this proportion of potato waste and ISR. Higher ISRs led to faster onset of biogas production and higher methane productivity. Furthermore, co-digestion of potato waste and sugar beet leaves in varying proportions was investigated at constant TS. Co-digestion improved the accumulated methane production and improved the methane yield by 31–62% compared with digestion of potato waste alone.     

Reactions of low and middle concentration dry methane over Ni/YSZ anode of solid oxide fuel cell

Directly using methane in solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) requires the knowledge of the reaction of methane over the anode. The reactions of low and middle concentration dry methane were studied over the anode of solid oxide fuel cell with Ni/yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) anode and YSZ electrolyte. The production rates of different types of gas at anode outlet were measured at different current density. Mass balance and relationships between production rates and reaction rates were used to analyze the chemical and electrochemical reactions that took place in parallel. When dry methane is in low concentration, methane decomposition and deposited carbon oxidation occurs at low current density with the overall reaction being partial oxidation of methane (POM). With increased current density, hydrogen oxidation and carbon monoxide oxidizing to carbon dioxide take place simultaneously, and the overall reaction becomes the direct oxidation of methane (DOM). When DOM occurs, a portion of methane participates the POM. However, the rate of POM decreases with increased current density. At medium methane concentration, only partial oxidation of methane takes place. Carbon deposition was found in all the tests across the concentration range investigated.     

A strategy of mid-temperature natural gas based chemical looping reforming for hydrogen production

Steam methane reforming (SMR) needs the reaction heat at a temperature above 800 °C provided by the combustion of natural gas and suffers from adverse environmental impact and the hydrogen separated from other chemicals needs extra energy penalty. In order to avoid the expensive cost and high power consumption caused by capturing CO₂ after combustion in SMR, natural gas Chemical Looping Reforming (CLR) is proposed, where the chemical looping combustion of metal oxides replaced the direct combustion of NG to convert natural gas to hydrogen and carbon dioxide. Although CO₂ can be separated with less energy penalty when combustion, CLR still require higher temperature heat for the hydrogen production and cause the poor sintering of oxygen carriers (OC). Here, we report a high-rate hydrogen production and low-energy penalty of strategy by natural gas chemical-looping process with both metallic oxide reduction and metal oxidation coupled with steam. Fe₃O₄ is employed as an oxygen carrier. Different from the common chemical looping reforming, the double side reactions of both the reduction and oxidization enable to provide the hydrogen in the range of 500–600 °C under the atmospheric pressure. Furthermore, the CO₂ is absorbed and captured with reduction reaction simultaneously.Through the thermodynamic analysis and irreversibility analysis of hydrogen production by natural gas via chemical looping reforming at atmospheric pressure, we provide a possibility of hydrogen production from methane at moderate temperature. The reported results in this paper should be viewed as optimistic due to several idealized assumptions: Considering that the chemical looping reaction is carried out at the equilibrium temperature of 500 °C, and complete CO₂ capture can be achieved. It is assumed that the unreacted methane and hydrogen are completely separated by physical adsorption. This paper may have the potential of saving the natural gas consumption required to produce 1 m³ H₂ and reducing the cost of hydrogen production.