Abstract
As a result of rising economies and environmental constraints, the demand for clean and renewable sources of energy is fast increasing. Biogas is a renewable form of energy that fits all expectations in terms of delivery, cost, and greenhouse emissions reduction. Biogas utilization is advantageous because it is a means of creating wealth from daily human, agricultural, household and municipal waste that could otherwise be polluting the environment as waste is deposited on a daily basis which are potential biogas sources; it is not dependent on weather conditions as other renewable forms (solar and wind). Biogas can also be compressed, stored and transported, and therefore easily responds to changes in demand. This paper entails the use of nano-structured membranes to upgrade biogas (which contains primarily methane and carbon dioxide). The benefits of membranes include their compact structure and ease of usage with low maintenance, their low running costs and minimal loss of the upgraded gas. 15nm, 200nm and 6000nm membranes were used to ascertain the flux of the model biogas mixture passing through it under various operating conditions. In each case, the exit flowrate of methane was higher than that of carbon dioxide and this is attributed to the pore sizes of the membrane and its ability to filter the heavier gases. The results show that the molecular weight of the gases also play a role in their permeation rate as it follows the Knudsen regime.
Highlights
The world’s population is fast increasing and the demand for energy will have to increase to support this growth
The advantages of membrane technology over other methods are briefly highlighted in table 1 above; there is a low possibility of methane loss via the process, a good possibility of removing other contaminants in the gas stream, no heat consumption and this would in turn have a massive impact on total running costs thereby dismissing the initial high cost of installation
5.1 Effect of Pressure Drop on Permeate Flowrate for different Temperatures and Membrane Pore Sizes The set of graphs below show the relationship between the exit flowrate and inlet pressure for each gas used in the experiment
Summary
The world’s population is fast increasing and the demand for energy will have to increase to support this growth. To reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the effect of global warming by utilizing biogas This is clean and renewable source of energy. On the other hand, scrubbing can be done using organic solvents like mixtures of methanol and dimethyl ethers of polyethylene glycol [7] This method relies on the principle of solubility and is similar to the process of water scrubbing. The advantages of membrane technology over other methods are briefly highlighted in table 1 above; there is a low possibility of methane loss via the process, a good possibility of removing other contaminants in the gas stream (such as H2S,N2,O2), no heat consumption and this would in turn have a massive impact on total running costs thereby dismissing the initial high cost of installation
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