公開日:2022/02/11 / 最終更新日:2022/02/11

Biogas is a renewable fuel produced by the breakdown of natural matter resembling meals scraps and animal waste. It may be utilized in a variety of ways together with as vehicle fuel and for heating and electricity generation. Read on to study more.

What’s biogas? How is biogas produced?

Biogas is an environmentally-friendly, renewable energy source.

It’s produced when natural matter, resembling food or animal waste, is broken down by microorganisms in the absence of oxygen, in a process called anaerobic digestion. For this to take place, the waste materials needs to be enclosed in an atmosphere where there is no such thing as a oxygen.

It may well occur naturally or as part of an industrial process to deliberately create biogas as a fuel.

What kind of waste can be used to produce biogas?

A wide variety of waste materials breaks down into biogas, together with animal manure, municipal garbage/ waste, plant materials, meals waste or sewage.

Which gases does biogas comprise?

Biogas consists primarily of methane and carbon dioxide. It could actually also embrace small amounts of hydrogen sulphide, siloxanes and a few moisture. The relative quantities of those range relying on the type of waste involved within the production of the ensuing biogas.

What can biogas be used for?

To fuel vehicles – if biogas is compressed it can be utilized as a vehicle fuel.

As a replacement for natural gas – if biogas is cleaned up and upgraded to natural gas standards, it’s then known as biomethane and can be utilized in an identical way to methane; this can embrace for cooking and heating.

Biogas: 6 fascinating info

1. Biogas is a gas of many names

Biogas is most commonly also known as biomethane. It’s also sometimes called marsh gas, sewer gas, compost gas and swamp gas in the US.

Biogas is a naturally occurring and renewable supply of energy, ensuing from the breakdown of natural matter. Biogas is not to be confused with ‘natural’ gas, which is a non-renewable supply of power.

2. Biogas and biomass: similarities and differences

Biomass and biogas are both biofuels; they are often burnt to produce energy. However biomass is the solid, natural material. Biomass has been used as an energy source since people first discovered fire and burnt wood, plants and animal dung to create energy.

Immediately, many power stations run by burning a biomass of compressed wood pellets – a by-product of timber and furniture-making. By replacing fossil-fuel coal, biomass enables renewable electricity to be produced.

3. Biogas will not be a new discovery

The anaerobic process of decomposition (or fermentation) of organic matter has been occurring in nature for millions of years, even earlier than fossil fuels, and continues to happen all around us in the natural world. Right this moment’s industrial conversion of natural waste into energy in biogas plants is solely fast-forwarding nature’s ability to recycle its helpful resources.

The first human use of biogas is believed to this point back to 3,000BC in the Center East, when the Assyrians used biogas to heat their baths.

A 17th century chemist, Jan Baptist van Helmont, discovered that flammable gases may come from decaying natural matter. Van Helmont can be responsible for bringing the word ‘gas’, from the Greek word chaos, into the science vocabulary.

The primary massive anaerobic digestion plant dates back to 1859 in a leper colony in Bombay.

An creative Victorian engineer, John Webb from Birmingham, created the Sewage Lamp, which transformed sewage into biogas to light street lamps. The only remaining Webb Sewer Lamp in London is now just off The Strand in Carting Lane – or as some wags would have it, Farting Lane.

Anaerobic digestion was used as a way to deal with municipal wastewater, earlier than chemical treatments. Within the creating world the anaerobic process is still recognised as an inexpensive, natural various to chemicals and the reduction of dysentery bacteria.

And let’s not neglect that in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome the put up-apocalyptic settlement Bartertown, run by Tina Turner’s terrifying Aunty Entity, is powered by a pig-farm biogas system with biogas used to power the desert-chasing vehicles.

4. Right now China leads the world in the usage of biogas

China has the largest number of biogas plants, with an estimated 50 million households using biogas. These are mostly in rural areas and small-scale home and village plants.

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