Biogas is a renewable fuel produced by the breakdown of natural matter similar to meals scraps and animal waste. It may be utilized in a variety of ways including as vehicle fuel and for heating and electricity generation. Read on to learn more.
What’s biogas? How is biogas produced?
Biogas is an environmentally-friendly, renewable energy source.
It’s produced when natural matter, such as 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 material must be enclosed in an surroundings the place there is no such thing as a oxygen.
It may well occur naturally or as part of an industrial process to intentionally create biogas as a fuel.
What kind of waste can be utilized to produce biogas?
A wide variety of waste material breaks down into biogas, together with animal manure, municipal garbage/ waste, plant materials, food waste or sewage.
Which gases does biogas comprise?
Biogas consists mainly of methane and carbon dioxide. It could actually additionally embrace small quantities of hydrogen sulphide, siloxanes and some moisture. The relative quantities of those range relying on the type of waste concerned in the production of the ensuing biogas.
What can biogas be used for?
To fuel vehicles – if biogas is compressed it can be used 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 used in an analogous way to methane; this can include for cooking and heating.
Biogas: 6 fascinating facts
1. Biogas is a gas of many names
Biogas is most commonly additionally known as biomethane. It’s additionally sometimes called marsh gas, sewer gas, compost gas and swamp gas in the US.
Biogas is a naturally occurring and renewable supply of energy, resulting from the breakdown of organic matter. Biogas is to not be confused with ‘natural’ gas, which is a non-renewable supply of power.
2. Biogas and biomass: comparableities and variations
Biomass and biogas are each biofuels; they are often burnt to produce energy. However biomass is the stable, organic material. Biomass has been used as an energy source since people first discovered fire and burnt wood, plants and animal dung to create energy.
At present, many energy 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 is just not a new discovery
The anaerobic process of decomposition (or fermentation) of organic matter has been happening 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 organic waste into energy in biogas plants is solely fast-forwarding nature’s ability to recycle its useful resources.
The first human use of biogas is thought to this point back to 3,000BC within 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 organic matter. Van Helmont can also be chargeable for bringing the word ‘gas’, from the Greek word chaos, into the science vocabulary.
The first large anaerobic digestion plant dates back to 1859 in a leper colony in Bombay.
An ingenious Victorian engineer, John Webb from Birmingham, created the Sewage Lamp, which converted sewage into biogas to light avenue 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 method to treat municipal wastewater, earlier than chemical treatments. Within the developing world the anaerobic process is still recognised as a cheap, natural alternative to chemical compounds and the reduction of dysentery bacteria.
And let’s not neglect that in Mad Max Past Thunderdome the submit-apocalyptic settlement Bartertown, run by Tina Turner’s terrifying Aunty Entity, is powered by a pig-farm biogas system with biogas used to energy the desert-chasing vehicles.
4. As we speak China leads the world in the usage of biogas
China has the most important number of biogas plants, with an estimated 50 million households utilizing biogas. These are mostly in rural areas and small-scale dwelling and village plants.
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