Applied Energy 90 (2012) 11–16

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Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

Biogas from renewable electricity – Increasing a climate neutral fuel supply

Farzad Mohseni ⇑, Mimmi Magnusson, Martin Görling, Per Alvfors
Royal Institute of Technology – KTH, School of Chemical Science and Engineering, Chemical Engineering and Technology, Division of Energy Processes,
Teknikringen 50, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: If considering the increased utilisation of renewable electricity during the last decade, it is realistic to
Received 30 September 2010 assume that a significant part of future power production will originate from renewable sources. These
Received in revised form 11 July 2011 are normally intermittent and would cause a fluctuating electricity production. A common suggestion
Accepted 13 July 2011
for stabilising intermittent power in the grid is to produce hydrogen through water electrolysis thus stor-
Available online 16 September 2011
ing the energy for later. It could work as an excellent load management tool to control the intermittency,
due to its flexibility. In turn, hydrogen could be used as a fuel in transport if compressed or liquefied.
Keywords:
However, since hydrogen is highly energy demanding to compress, and moreover, has relatively low
Biogas
Renewable energy
energy content per volume it would be more beneficial to store the hydrogen chemically attached to car-
Intermittent power bon forming synthetic methane (i.e. biogas).
Synthetic fuels This paper presents how biogas production from a given amount of biomass could be increased by
Sabatier reaction addition of renewable electricity. Commonly biogas is produced through digestion of organic material.
Recently also biomass gasification is gaining more attention and is under development. However, in both
cases, a significant amount of carbon dioxide is produced as by-product which is subject for separation
and disposal. To increase the biogas yield, the separated carbon dioxide (which is considered as climate
neutral) could, instead of being seen as waste, be used as a component to produce additional methane
through the well-known Sabatier reaction. In such process the carbon could act as hydrogen carrier of
hydrogen originating from water electrolysis driven by renewable sources.
In this study a base case scenario, describing biogas plants of typical sizes and efficiencies, is presented
for both digestion and gasification. It is assessed that, if implementing the Sabatier process on gasifica-
tion, the methane production would be increased by about 110%. For the digestion, the increase, includ-
ing process improvements, would be about 74%. Hence, this method results in greatly increased biogas
potential without the addition of new raw material to the process. Additionally, such model would pres-
ent a great way to meet the transport sector’s increasing demand for renewable fuels, while simulta-
neously reducing net emissions of carbon dioxide.
Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Climate change due to anthropogenic carbon dioxide is a matter
of outmost concern in today’s environmental debate. Fossil carbon
from coal, oil or gas is by far the dominating feedstock for both the
stationary sector and the transport sector. In the stationary sector
renewable energy, e.g. wind power, PV (photovoltaics) and wave
power, is gaining more attention and its usage is increasing rapidly
as a measure for replacing fossil alternatives.
The situation is similar in the transport sector where green
alternatives, mainly derived from biomass, are supposed to play
a key role in the replacement of fossil fuels. In 2007 the share of
renewable alternatives in the transport sector only reached 2% of
its total energy usage on a global scale [1].
Biogas is a biofuel with great potential for increasing the share
of renewable fuels in the transport sector. Biogas is in this paper
defined as a biofuel containing mostly methane, independent of
the route used to produce it1. It has many applications and has
excellent combustion properties and is used as vehicle fuel for cars
as well as in heavy-duty vehicles. It could also be used in power
and heat production and as town gas in households. Depending on
the production method used, various amounts of the input organic
material can be converted into methane.
There are several routes possible for producing biogas, which
includes first, second and third generation processes. Depending
on production route different generations of fuels are obtained.
These are, in brief and general terms, defined according to
following:

⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +46 8 790 9480; fax: +46 8 723 0858. 1
Biogas could also be referred to as biomethane, synthetic natural gas or substitute
E-mail address: fmt@kth.se (F. Mohseni). natural gas, depending on the process used.

0306-2619/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2011.07.024
12 F. Mohseni et al. / Applied Energy 90 (2012) 11–16
 First-generation biofuels: Often referred to as fuels produced
from organic material without any chemical processes involved.
These fuels are to a large extent commercially available today,
e.g. digestion biogas and sugar cane ethanol.
 Second-generation biofuels: These use processes also based on
organic material but are to some extent treated either chemi-
cally or thermally to obtain the desired fuel. The processes are
typically not yet commercial although possible in the near-
term, e.g. fuels from biomass or black liquor gasification and
cellulosic ethanol.
 Third-generation biofuels: Fully synthetic fuels which are produced
through a variety of chemical reactions. The third generation of
biofuels are somewhat further away from commercialisation
than the second-generation fuels, e.g. hydrogen used in fuel
cells or synthetically produced methane, described further in
this paper.
With biomass being a limited resource due to land mass limita-
tions, the amount of biofuels that can be produced using first and
second-generation techniques is also limited. A scaled-up produc-
tion with these methods could create competition for raw material
not only with food production but also with the forest industry.
Therefore it is most likely that the usage of renewable electricity
to produce synthetic fuels will play an important role in the future.
1.1. Aim and scope
The aim of this study is to illustrate how renewable electricity
can be used to increase biogas production capacity given certain
prerequisites. Biogas production via digestion and gasification of
biomass both produce carbon dioxide as a by-product. Together
with hydrogen produced via electrolysis powered by renewable
electricity, the catalytic reduction of carbon dioxide could produce
biogas, thus using the carbon in the biomass feedstock in an effi-
cient way.
This paper covers, among other things, various technologies for
improving today’s digestion production, e.g. by using better pro-
cess control, different pre-treatment methods or different addi-
tives. It also studies the potential of using lignocellulosic biomass
as feedstock for biogas production via gasification, in addition to
conventional digestion of organic waste. It is suggested that bio-
mass gasification could be implemented in those regions where
biomass is available in excess to increase the biogas share of the
transport sectors’ energy demand.
A base case scenario, based on the literature data as basis for
calculations, is used to exemplify the extent that renewable elec-
tricity together with various process improvements will be able
to contribute, in terms of enhanced biogas production. The base
case describes a typical digestion plant as well as a typical gasifica-
tion plant, concerning size and efficiency. To the given base case
digestion plant, and thereby given biogas potential, various possi-
ble measures for increasing the capacity are discussed and a poten-
tial for improvement is determined. Since the gasification
technology is not yet commercial, no improving measures are
exemplified for this base case plant. The carbon dioxide separated
from the above processes is used in the catalytic reduction of car-
bon dioxide to produce additional methane. The calculated in-
creased amount of biogas is then compared to the base case
scenarios.
2. Background
In 2007 biofuels constituted about 4% of the energy use in the
road transport sector in Sweden. All of the biofuels used are so
called first generation biofuels, mostly ethanol (sugar or starch
based), FAME (fatty acid methyl esters) and biogas [2]. To cover
a larger part of the transport sector’s energy demand, the sec-
ond as well as the third generation of biofuels are needed. Where
the first generation of biofuels is commercially available today,
both the second and third generations are still under
development.
2.1. Renewable electricity in the transport system
Renewable energy (mainly wind and solar) has gained heavy
attention the recent years and will play an important role among
the future primary energy sources. According to a assessment re-
port from the Swedish Energy Agency, it would not be unrealistic
to estimate an installed wind power capacity of 30% of the total
electricity production around year 2030. This can be compared to
today’s 2% [3,4]. However, renewable sources in general fluctuate
heavily depending on weather conditions, which cause intermit-
tent power production. Exceedingly high penetration of intermit-
tent power in the grid enforces additional requirements on e.g.
grid system management and operational procedures. A common
recognition is that the existing grid can operate more or less nor-
mally with wind power penetration up to 20% of the maximum
load [5].
To be able to control intermittent power during high loads one
measure would be to use electrolysers for hydrogen production as
load management. Electrolytic hydrogen, representing a third gen-
eration fuel, would serve as energy storage of electricity which la-
ter could be used in a wide range of applications e.g. in combustion
processes as well as in fuel cells. Electrolysis has the benefit of
being flexible in its operation and, in addition for being a load man-
agement tool, it could also be used during periods of low cost elec-
tricity in the grid [5]. Such system would work especially well
among the Nordic countries where the electricity prices vary in a
continuous manner [6].
When addressing a more climate neutral transport sector many
groups studied the possibilities of electrolytic hydrogen used as
energy carrier [7,8]. It could in turn be used in fuel cells for running
an electric engine in vehicles for e.g. road transport. In this paper,
however, it is suggested to use the hydrogen for reduction of car-
bon dioxide (preferably from ‘‘green’’ carbon dioxide) to produce
hydrocarbons, in this case methane, to be used as a fuel. The chem-
ical reaction and production route are presented more thoroughly
in Section 3.3. Methane produced from electrolysis driven by
renewable energy combined with carbon dioxide derived from or-
ganic material would in this case be considered climate neutral,
hence biogas. Compared to hydrogen, methane has the large
advantage of a considerably high energy density, i.e. energy per
volume, which gives an opportunity of transporting larger amounts
of energy in the same storage volume.
Methane is considered as a conventional fuel, which is used
commercially in the transport sector. However, a major part of
the methane still originates from fossil sources (mainly natural
gas). Implementing the proposed model would result in an intro-
duction of synthesised biogas, which in turn would mean an in-
creased share of renewable electricity in the transport sector
while simultaneously still using conventional technology in the
vehicles.
3. Possible routes of biogas production
In this section methane production originating from the first
generation, represented by digestion; the second generation, rep-
resented by gasification; and the third generation, represented by
methane synthesised from carbon dioxide and hydrogen, is
described.
 F. Mohseni et al. / Applied Energy 90 (2012) 11–16
3.1. Digestion
Digestion of organic material to produce biogas is a process
belonging to the first generation of biofuels production. All types
of organic material can be subject to digestion; amongst the most
commonly used substrates are food waste, sewage sludge, manure
and agricultural waste. The conditions for the digestion process de-
pend on the type of substrate used, but the main stages are shown
in Fig. 1.
The material subject to digestion has to go through several
stages of pre-treatment prior to the digestion; the types of pre-
treatment can vary with the substrate used. After collection, for-
eign objects such as paper, plastics and stones, are separated from
the substrate. The types of pre-treatment methods used, e.g.
mechanical (such as grinding), chemical (addition of alkali or acid)
and thermal (hygienisation), are made to size the substrate, to
make it more susceptible to microbial degradation and to get rid
of contaminating substances [9,10]. The digestion is a complex ser-
ies of reactions in which the substrate is degraded in four stages:
hydrolysis, acidogenesis, acetogenesis and methanogenesis.
Hydrolysis is seen as the rate-limiting step where enzymes break
down the organic substrate. In the acido- and acetogenesis inter-
mediate products are formed; they are in the last step turned into
mainly methane and carbon dioxide [10–12]. Consequently, the
two main products formed during digestion are methane and
carbon dioxide, but small traces of other gases (e.g. hydrogen sul-
phide, ammonia and water vapour) are generated as well. The ratio
between methane and carbon dioxide is dependent on the feed-
stock and process used but, typically, the methane content is
somewhere between 55% and 75%, with the remainder being
carbon dioxide [12,13]. This gas is often referred to as crude gas,
as opposed to the upgraded biogas used as motor fuel. The by-
products of the digestion are, besides the carbon dioxide, mainly
a solid fraction, called digestate, and wastewater [12,14,15]. There
are several parameters influencing the digestion and the rate of the
different stages; amongst these are, e.g. temperature, number of
fermentation steps, pH, retention time and moisture content of
the substrate. These parameters are specific for each process and
can be adjusted to enhance the biogas production.
There are three temperature intervals where the methane-pro-
ducing bacteria can live optimally; the psychrophiles/cryophiles
act at 0–20 °C, the mesophiles at 30–40 °C and the thermophiles
at 50–60 °C. Industrial digestion is most commonly performed at
the two higher intervals. Generally, a higher temperature gives a
faster reaction rate, which is an advantage since smaller reactor
volumes are needed. However, the thermophilic digestion is more
sensitive when it comes to temperature and concentration varia-
tions and needs more process control, whereas the mesophilic
digestion is a more stable process. Whether mesophilic or thermo-
philic, the process demands energy to keep the reactor at the
appropriate temperature. A common way of covering the heat de-
mand is using part of the produced gas, but if district heating or ex-
cess heat from other industries is available, this could be a more
suitable option [11,12].
3.1.1. Improvements for the digestion process
Since the potential for biogas production is limited it is impor-
tant to maximise the methane yield in the process and to minimise
Fig. 1. Schematic description of the digestion process.
13
the costs related to production. This can be achieved, e.g. by speed-
ing up the digestion process, thereby decreasing the reactor vol-
umes or increasing the capacity of an existing reactor.
Improvements of the digestion process can be divided into a few
general categories, i.e. making the substrate more accessible, using
additives or optimising and controlling the process conditions.
Several pre-treatment methods are available for making the
substrate more accessible to the digesting bacteria. Thermal (or
thermochemical) pre-treatment is one way, since structures in
the organic material are degraded when subject to heating. This
could potentially increase the biogas yield by up to 20–60% for
mesophilic digestion [9,10,16], however, this type of pre-treatment
is energy demanding which could make it costly. Other ways of
making the material more accessible and thereby increasing the
yield are to use ultrasound or electric pulse-power technology to
break down the substrate, thus increasing the degradation and/or
making it faster. These two methods can increase the biogas pro-
duction by 25% (sewage sludge) or 10–40% (depending on sub-
strate), respectively [9,10,16,17].
The composition of the substrate is an important factor for a
high yield, and mixing several substrates improves the composi-
tion of nutrients as well as the composition of the input material
itself. Co-digestion, mixing e.g. sewage sludge with food waste,
gives a higher methane yield than if these two were digested sep-
arately; the increase could be as high as 60%, depending on sub-
strate used [18].
Improved process control is a good way to make the process
more efficient. One way of improving the process by means of tem-
perature, is to optimise the temperature within the temperature
interval used to have as high a temperature as possible. As men-
tioned above, the temperature in the reactor is one of the parame-
ters of the digestion process and most biogas facilities in Sweden
today are run at mesophilic conditions [13]. A process at thermo-
philic conditions might have a higher yield, however, because of
a higher reaction rate. Yet another way of improving the process
is to design it with two (or more) reactors in series. Commonly, a
single reactor is used, but with two stages the actual retention time
for the material can be increased even though the same total vol-
ume is used. This might give an increase in methane conversion
by 5% [19].
Summed up, there are several possible improvements for the
digestion process, which could have a great impact for the biogas
potential. Some improvements are only viable for certain sub-
strates and some are techniques already in use at some digestion
facilities. With co-digestion giving up to a 60% increase and differ-
ent pre-treatment methods giving some 20–40% increase (see
above), an overall potential for improvement of the biogas process
is assumed to be 30% in this paper.
3.2. Gasification
Second generation biofuels can be based e.g. on gasification of
non-food biomass and black liquor. Fuels that have been discussed
as future alternatives are among others, synthetic natural gas
(SNG), hydrogen, methanol and dimethyl ether (DME). Biogas from
biomass gasification is often referred to as SNG; it has the same
characteristics as fossil natural gas and can therefore be distributed
through an existing gas grid and be used in the same applications.
Since gasification is still a novel technology under development
and no full-scale plants for fuel production have yet been built, a
general description of the process is given in this paper and illus-
trated in Fig. 2.
Pre-treatment is the initial step in the production process and in-
volves chipping and drying of the biomass. In order to facilitate
long-distance transport, there are methods to increase energy den-
sity, such as pyrolysis and pelletisation. In the gasification step,
14 F. Mohseni et al. / Applied Energy 90 (2012) 11–16
Fig. 2. Schematic overview of the gasification process.
Table 1
Examples of efficiency for SNG production [23].
Pressurised O2-blown gasifier Indirect gasifier
Mass flow Energy Mass flow
(kg/s) (MW) (kg/s)
Biomass input 9.8 150.8 9.7
Biogas output 2.6 100 2.6
CO2 removed 7.6 – 4.6
(=172 mol/s) (=105 mol/s)
biomass is heated and oxidised into syngas, containing mainly car-
bon monoxide, hydrogen, and carbon dioxide (besides N2 if the gas-
ifying medium is air). There are various types of gasifiers such as
fluidised bed, indirect and entrained flow. Gasification can be oper-
ated at atmospheric conditions or under pressure (about 20–30 bar)
using different fluidising media e.g. air, steam and/or oxygen. There
has also been some research done on hydrogen as gasification med-
ium [20]. Gas cleaning is needed to protect the downstream equip-
ment; the most common pollutants are sulphur, tar and alkali
metals. Steam is added in the water–gas-shift reaction (WGS) in or-
der to shift the carbon monoxide to hydrogen and carbon dioxide
which is illustrated in the following equation [21]:
CO þ H2 O ! CO2 þ H2 DH ¼ 41 kJ=mol
When obtaining the right proportions of hydrogen and carbon
monoxide the following process step is methanation according to
the following equation [22]:
3H2 þ CO ! CH4 þ H2 O DH ¼ 217 kJ=mol
After methanation the syngas proceeds to the final stage, the
upgrading, which includes water and carbon dioxide removal.
Previous studies have concluded that the overall biomass to
biogas efficiency is around 64–67% depending on equipment used
[23,24]. Examples of different techniques and energy efficiencies
are given in Table 1. The remainder of the energy content in the
biomass is converted to reaction heat, which can be recovered
and utilised in a steam cycle for power generation. A significant
amount of steam is also needed in the production process, espe-
cially for gasification and carbon dioxide removal.
3.3. Reduction of carbon dioxide
Among the by-products of the above-mentioned production
processes a large share will consist of carbon dioxide. Generally it
is separated and vented to the atmosphere or kept and used in var-
ious industries, e.g. food packaging industry, as refrigerant or for
carbonating beverages. An alternative would be to reuse the carbon
dioxide for producing a more valuable component, which could be
done by e.g. reaction with hydrogen. A common approach is to look
at the possibility of manufacturing a propellant, e.g. methane,
methanol or other derivates. In this paper methane is focused on
since it has many advantages compared to the alternatives. Firstly,
it is a simple hydrocarbon with only one reaction step through the
well-known Sabatier reaction (shown in Eq. (3)), which is advanta-
geous to minimise conversion losses. Additionally it has a favour-
able chemical equilibrium which lets large amounts of carbon
dioxide be converted into methane during the reaction [25]. More-
over, methane is a conventional fuel today and used in many
applications.
Energy CO2 þ 4H2 ! CH4 þ 2H2 O DH ¼ 165 kJ=mol ð3Þ
(MW)
The Sabatier reaction has been known since the beginning of
149.3
100 the 1900s and has been studied by many research groups e.g.
– [25–27]. Moreover, NASA is interested in using the reaction for
reproducing oxygen in applications outside the earth’s atmosphere
[25–27]. Consequently since the Sabatier reaction is such an estab-
lished reaction it would be relatively easy to implement in com-
mercial scale if incentives exist (mainly economical and political).
To facilitate for the reaction to occur catalysts must be used. A
wide variety exist today that could be used and are both noble and
non-noble metals e.g. Rhodium, Ruthenium and Nickel [25,27].
Catalysts, especially noble metals, could be very expensive; hence
it would not be economically feasible to utilise these in pure form.
In such cases it is favourable to use a support, a less costly material
than the catalyst itself, but with a high contact area relative to its
size. Catalyst supports are commonly used in industries where a
high contact area of the catalyst is needed in an economical man-
ner. The active metal is normally coated onto the surface of the
support which results in a high exposure of the active metal, even
though it only constitutes a few percent of the total weight.
Other matters that must be taken into consideration are the
ð1Þ reaction conditions, e.g. pressure and temperature. Studies of the
Sabatier reaction have been performed at atmospheric pressure
with temperatures ranging between 250 °C and 400 °C in atmo-
spheric pressure showing good conversion rates due to its equilib-
rium [26,27].
As illustrated in the reaction, relatively large amounts of hydro-
ð2Þ
gen must be added. The hydrogen is suggested to be produced from
water electrolysis driven by a renewable source i.e. wind power,
PV, etc. to keep the process carbon dioxide lean. The electricity
need for the electrolysis is about 4.3 kW h per produced Nm3
hydrogen [28].
4. Method
This paper presents two processes for producing biogas; one is
commercially available today (digestion) and the other is still un-
der development (gasification). For each process there is a wide
range of sizes (i.e. biogas output) and production techniques. To
exemplify, a base case for each process has been chosen (based
on the literature data), to illustrate a general production plant in
terms of size and production method.
Digestion is a technology used both on a small scale, e.g. on
farms mainly digesting manure and/or agricultural waste, and on
a larger industrial scale, with digestion of sewage sludge, house-
hold waste or waste from food processing industry. Here the focus
is on the industrial type of digestion in the mesophilic range; how-
ever, the discussed process and improvements (see Section 3.1) can
also be valid for other types of digestion processes. A typical indus-
trial-scale biogas plant in Sweden delivers 5 MW of upgraded bio-
gas. The common methane content in the crude gas, for such a
facility, is 65% and the carbon dioxide content is 35% (molar basis)
[13], which corresponds to a carbon dioxide production of 0.15 kg/
s (0.54 tonnes/h). These values are also assumed to constitute the
base case scenario for this paper.
 F. Mohseni et al. / Applied Energy 90 (2012) 11–16
Fig. 3. Illustration of the biogas production in the base case scenarios and from the
Sabatier reaction.
The size of a gasification plant is limited by the biomass re-
sources available within an economically feasible transport dis-
tance. However, this limitation is not a crucial factor for the
present study, therefore a size in the same range as a biomass-fired
combined heat and power plant has been chosen in this study [29].
The base case for gasification is hence set to 100 MW biogas output
which gives an output of carbon dioxide of 7.6 kg/s (27 tonnes/h).
For this base case, the pressurised O2-blown gasifier (see Table 1) is
chosen essentially for two reasons: pure O2 is available from the
electrolysis and all green carbon is recovered as methane. In the
indirect gasifier a fraction of the biomass is combusted in a sepa-
rate bed to supply the gasifier with heat without diluting the syn-
gas with the combustion product (carbon dioxide).
Since both digestion and gasification, besides methane, also
produce carbon dioxide the Sabatier reaction is proposed. Carbon
dioxide in the processes is normally separated from the biogas
resulting in a gas stream with high shares of carbon dioxide. This
stream is assumed to be fed into the Sabatier reaction together
with hydrogen produced via electrolysis. Approximately 70% of
the electric energy (LHV) is transformed to hydrogen in the elec-
trolysis [28], this conversion factor is used as the basis for calcula-
tions in this study. The rest of the energy is transformed into
chemical reaction heat at 80 °C, which can be recovered and used
for heating purposes.
Due to the equilibrium of the Sabatier reaction, the reaction is
strongly favoured towards the right hand side. Previous
studies have shown conversion rates between 80% and 90%
[26,27]. This therefore opens for the possibility of converting large
amounts of the carbon dioxide to additional methane. In Fig. 3,
the base case processes and the expanded system are shown
schematically.
5. Results
In the previous section it was stated that the base case scenarios
assumed in this paper deliver 105 MW of biogas, where 100 MW
originates from gasification and 5 MW from digestion. In the diges-
tion case improvements as well as renewable electricity via the
Sabatier reaction has been proposed to increase the biogas output;
in the gasification case renewable electricity via the Sabatier reac-
tion increases the biogas output.
For the digestion, process improvement measures yielding 30%
are suggested (see Section 3.1.1), which gives an increase from the
base case by 1.5 MW. The produced carbon dioxide used in the
Sabatier reaction gives an additional 2.2 MW of biogas. In the gas-
ification process 7.6 kg/s of carbon dioxide is produced which, used
in the Sabatier reaction, gives about 110 MW of additional biogas.
In total this gives a biogas production of 8.7 MW for the digestion
(including improvements) and 210 MW for the gasification, mean-
15
Table 2
Biogas production: base case and improvements.
Digestion (MW) Gasification (MW)
Base case 5.0 100
Process improvements 1.5 –
Sabatier 2.2 110
Total 8.7 210
ing an increase of 74% and 110%, respectively. For both cases it is
assumed a carbon dioxide conversion of about 80% in the Sabatier
reaction. The data for the base case and the increases in biogas pro-
duction are summarised in Table 2.
6. Discussion
From an energy efficiency point of view for the Sabatier process,
the main disadvantage is obviously the conversion losses from
electricity to methane. However, the main part of the energy lost
in conversion is in form of heat. If being able to recover it in an
effective manner, the energy efficiency of the total process (i.e.
electrolysis and Sabatier reaction connected to either digestion or
gasification) would be kept relatively high.
There are several synergy effects in combining the electrolysis,
preceding the Sabatier reaction, with the digestion or the gasifica-
tion process. Hydrogen via electrolysis produces two by-products,
heat as mentioned earlier (up to 80 °C) and oxygen. In the gasifica-
tion process both would be useful. Heat could be used for e.g. pre-
heating or drying purposes. Oxygen (and steam) is required for
most types of gasifiers. An advantage with oxygen produced by
electrolysis is the high moisture content. By using humid oxygen
the steam consumption for fluidisation in the gasifier can be re-
duced [30].
The digestion process, whether mesophilic or thermophilic, has
a certain heat demand, as stated earlier. Instead of covering this
demand by using part of the produced biogas or using district heat-
ing which are common alternatives, the heat from the electrolysis
could be used, when the Sabatier process is in connection with the
digestion plant. Since the heat needed for the digestion is of rela-
tively low grade, the heat from the electrolysis can well cover this
demand. The oxygen on the other hand would not be necessary to a
large extent so most of it could be sold.
Regarding the reaction itself, it occurs at elevated temperatures
and is highly exothermal; a lot of excess heat is produced which
could be used. Additional heat could be recovered by condensation
of the water vapour, the by-product besides methane in the reac-
tion. Such high-grade heat (250–400 °C) could be used in various
applications as a measure of keeping the process as energy efficient
as possible. Again, the heat could be used in the gasification process.
In the digestion such heat is not required and could therefore in-
stead be sold for district heating or for industrial steam production.
The proposed method of utilising the Sabatier reaction as a com-
plement to e.g. digestion or gasification processes opens the possi-
bility of drastically increasing the biogas potential. It is commonly
recognised that biofuels, derived from biomass, is not sufficient by
far to meet the energy demands in the transport sector. Hence, as
stated earlier, renewable energy (mainly electricity) will most likely
have a significant role in the future transport. However, the
development of battery electric vehicles is still underway and
not yet used commercially. Biogas, on the other hand, is commonly
utilised by a wide range of vehicles e.g. cars, garbage trucks and
buses. Therefore, it would be reasonable to use the suggested
process as a bridge for introducing renewable electricity to the
transport where the ends of new technology meet conventional
machinery.
16 F. Mohseni et al. / Applied Energy 90 (2012) 11–16
7. Conclusions
In this paper it has been shown that biogas production from
digestion and gasification can be increased by the use of hydrogen
produced from green electricity. By implementation of process
improvements and the Sabatier process the biogas production
can increase by 74% in the digestion case and 110% in the gasifica-
tion case. Hence, by using this method the biogas potential can be
increased greatly with the same amount of input raw material.
Acknowledgements
The work has been carried out under the auspices of The Energy
Systems Programme (primarily financed by the Swedish Energy
Agency), and funded by Agrivind AB and Siemens Industrial Turbo-
machinery AB and Volvo Aero Corporation through the Swedish re-
search programme TURBO POWER, the support of which is
gratefully acknowledged.
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