Abstract
The agriculture and livestock industry generate waste used in anaerobic digestion to produce biogas containing methane (CH4), useful in the generation of electricity and heat. However, although biogas is mainly composed of CH4 (~65%) and CO2 (~34%), among the 1% of other compounds present is hydrogen sulphide (H2S) which deteriorates engines and power generation fuel cells that use biogas, generating a foul smell and contaminating the environment. As a solution to this, anoxic biofiltration, specifically with biotrickling filters (BTFs), stands out in terms of the elimination of H2S as it is cost-effective, efficient, and more environmentally friendly than chemical solutions. Research on the topic is uneven in terms of presenting performance markers, underestimating many microbiological indicators. Research from the last decade was analyzed (2010–2020), demonstrating that only 56% of the reviewed publications did not report microbiological analysis related to sulphur oxidising bacteria (SOB), the most important microbial group in desulphurisation BTFs. This exposes fundamental deficiencies within this type of research and difficulties in comparing performance between research works. In this review, traditional and microbiological performance markers of anoxic biofiltration to remove H2S are described. Additionally, an analysis to assess the efficiency of anoxic BTFs for biogas desulphurisation is proposed in order to have a complete and uniform assessment for research in this field.
Highlights
Anaerobic digestion (AD) is a biological process where solid organic matter originated in the agriculture and livestock industry, among others, is used to obtain biogas containing methane (CH4 ), which in quantities of ~65% is burned to produce bioenergy as heat and electricity in cogeneration engines [1]
The objectives of this article are: (a) to review the traditional efficiency and microbiological markers in biotrickling filters (BTFs) and the correct presentation of them; (b) to describe the microbiological analyses that are convenient for performance in the biotrickling filter study; (c) to review the status of BTFs for biogas hydrogen sulphide (H2 S) anoxic removal in the recent decade
Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) is a genetic analysis based on a polymerase chain reaction (PCR), in which amplified DNA fragments are separated into a polyacrylamide gel with a denaturing gradient of different formamide proportions [57,58]
Summary
Anaerobic digestion (AD) is a biological process where solid organic matter originated in the agriculture and livestock industry, among others, is used to obtain biogas containing methane (CH4 ), which in quantities of ~65% is burned to produce bioenergy as heat and electricity in cogeneration engines [1]. The major energy crops for biogas production are maize silage and grass, followed by lignocellulosic residues or other plant biomass in general (rich in lignin content) from sources such as banana plants (leftover banana trees, flowers, leaves), palm oil residues after harvest, sugar and palm oil refinement processes (that produce large quantities of fibrous lignocellulosic biomass), forestry residues, coffee pulp, and field residues such as corn stover [2]. In the intermediate stages of AD, H2 S is produced from the degradation of proteins containing sulphur-rich amino acids and from the sulphate reduction (SO4 2− )
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