Biogas generation from biomass as a cleaner alternative towards a circular bioeconomy: Artificial intelligence, challenges, and future insights

Abstract

In recent years, the growing trend of energy consumption from fossil fuels in the world has faced mankind with two major crises of environmental pollution and the increasing acceleration in the depletion of energy resources, hence the movement towards the provision of clean and renewable energy is placed as one of the main programs and strategy in the world. Biogas is a flammable mixture that is produced by fermentation of organic materials in a certain temperature range and a certain pH in anaerobic conditions by microbes. Fermentation reactions in the biogas device include sets of chemical and biological activities of two groups of acid-producing and methanogenic bacteria in the fermentation chamber, whose growth, survival, and the amount of biogas produced depends on the conditions of the fermentation environment. The produced biogas has a calorific value of 4580 to 5495 kcal/m3 for the degree of purity of 50 % to 65 % methane. This review focuses on recent developments and achievements for biogas generation from biomass towards a circular bioeconomy. Besides, the utilization of artificial intelligence to model the processes leading to the generation of biogas from biomass are highlighted, and finally, the challenges and opportunities of biogas generation from biomass are examined in detail, and solutions are mentioned to motivate researchers in this field.