Biogas is a renewable fuel produced by the breakdown of natural matter reminiscent of food scraps and animal waste. It can be used in quite a lot of ways together with as vehicle fuel and for heating and electricity generation. Read on to study more.
What is biogas? How is biogas produced? Biogas is an environmentally-pleasant, renewable energy source.
It’s produced when natural matter, reminiscent of meals or animal waste, is broken down by microorganisms within the absence of oxygen, in a process called anaerobic digestion. For this to take place, the waste materials needs to be enclosed in an surroundings where there isn't a oxygen.
It can happen naturally or as part of an industrial process to deliberately create biogas as a fuel.
What kind of waste can be utilized to produce biogas? A wide number of waste material breaks down into biogas, including animal livestock manure, municipal garbage/ waste, plant material, food waste or sewage.
Which gases does biogas include? Biogas consists mainly of methane and carbon dioxide. It may well additionally embody small amounts of hydrogen sulphide, siloxanes and some moisture. The relative quantities of these differ 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 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 used in an analogous way to methane; this can embrace 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 also generally called marsh gas, sewer gas, compost gas and swamp gas in the US.
Biogas is a naturally occurring and renewable source of energy, resulting 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: comparableities and differences Biomass and biogas are both biofuels; they can be burnt to produce energy. However biomass is the strong, natural material. Biomass has been used as an energy supply since people first discovered fire and burnt wood, plants and animal dung to create energy.
Right this moment, 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 not a new discovery The anaerobic process of decomposition (or fermentation) of organic matter has been occurring in nature for millions of years, even before fossil fuels, and continues to happen all around us within the natural world. Today’s industrial conversion of natural waste into energy in biogas plants is just fast-forwarding nature’s ability to recycle its useful resources.
The first human use of biogas is assumed to date back to three,000BC within the Middle East, when the Assyrians used biogas to heat their baths.
A 17th century chemist, Jan Baptist van Helmont, discovered that flammable gases could come from decaying organic matter. Van Helmont is also liable for bringing the word ‘gas’, from the Greek word chaos, into the science vocabulary.
The first giant 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 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 means to deal with municipal wastewater, earlier than chemical treatments. In the developing world the anaerobic process is still recognised as an affordable, natural various to chemical compounds and the reduction of dysentery bacteria.
And let’s not overlook that in Mad Max Past Thunderdome the post-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. At this time China leads the world in the use of biogas China has the biggest 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.
