Filed under: Natural Gas, Pacific Region
Banana methane will power cars in Australia
We have already covered different methods of obtaining methane by fermenting (or better, digesting) some kind of vegetable. But we haven't yet gotten to banana waste. Growcom, one of Australia's leading horticulture organisations is going from the prototype stage to a commercial plant that transforms banana waste into biomethane, which then will be used in vehicles powered by natural gas.
The processing plant basically consists in an anaerobic digester which treats the banana waste. There's more to it than that, as project manager and Growcom board member Keith Noble said, "An over-riding principle of the project has been to use locally available materials and expertise wherever possible. The system must also integrate with existing farm practices. If on-farm digesters are to have a commercial future they must add to farm efficiency and be simple to operate."
Just in case you wondered, it takes two weeks for the reactors to start producing methane.
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[Source: NGV Global]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
rgseidl 6:00PM (2/11/2008)
Biomethane is a great fuel for slightly modified spark ignition engines. It can be produced from all sorts of non-woody feedstocks using a regular AD, an H2S scrubber (simple), condensation unit and a CO2 scrubber (harder). After odorization, the finished product can be fed directly into the existing NG distribution grid. The residue from the AD batch process is a valuable fertilizer, making the process sustainable.
One of the biggest hurdles is the high complexity of the complete system, relative to gas production rates from a single farm. One option would be to limit the on-farm equipment to the ADs, H2S scrubbers and condensation units. Getting the sulfur and water out as early as possible is important as any sulfuric acid that may form would cause corrosion problems downstream.
The intermediate product would then be transported via a short network of pipes or else, a CNG truck, to a central facility that performs the remaining steps for multiple farms. The issue isn't the technology as such, it's more an issue of capital investment and skill set.
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