Bioconstruct
We erect turnkey biogas plants, develop biogas projects and we operate our own biogas plants. When dimensioning and conceptioning our biogas plants, we attach importance to flexibility. We develop a tailor-made concept for each bio-energetic feedstock, for each customer and for any kind of infrastructure. In order to guarantee a maximum of economic viability and operational safety, we equip your biogas plant with components, which have proven with long-term operation. BioConstruct constructs both agricultural biogas plants as well as industrial-standard anaerobic waste treatment plants.
Company details
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- Business Type:
- Service provider
- Industry Type:
- Bioenergy
- Market Focus:
- Internationally (various countries)
About Us
We erect turnkey biogas plants, develop biogas projects and we operate our own biogas plants.
When dimensioning and conceptioning our biogas plants, we attach importance to flexibility. We develop a tailor-made concept for each bio-energetic feedstock, for each customer and for any kind of infrastructure.
In order to guarantee a maximum of economic viability and operational safety, we equip your biogas plant with components, which have proven with long-term operation.
And about all what we do, our concern is not only to aim for a high profitability, but particularly to reach a protection of the climate and the future of our children by means of our active dedication to the construction of environment-friendly power plants. In our business premises we consume current, that is won to 100 % by renewable energy. our premises are exclusively heated by wood, harvested in nearby forests. And - if you understand a little bit german - we would be glad to present you at the foot of this page our 'Peru-Project' in which we support children in Lima, Peru.
Think global, act local, that's what we pursue - every day!
Competences
From the idea to the realization, an energy project requires a comprehensive know-how of all disciplines. The team from BioConstruct distinguishes itself by the combination of longtime experiences and a young modern way of thinking. The competences reach from agricultural know-how, over environmental law, construction engineering and operation and maintenance of biogas plants.
Contemporaneously, we also have strengthened the competences in the field of pipeline and concrete works by means of a close cooperation with a construction company. This cooperation guarantees an immense clout in order to realize your project fluently.
Historical Development of the Fermentation
The existence of microorganisms is the central prerequisite for the digestion. This fact was found out by Louis Pasteur in the year 1855. However, a look into the past shows, that the unconscious use of microorganisms had already started around 3000 B.C. The Egyptians leavened bread with sourdough. Furthermore, the Sumerer and Babylonians fermentered juice to alkoholic drinks and produced beer. In the year 1810, Gay-Lussac formulated the equation for the alcoholic fermentation.
Pasteurs discovery introduced the age of the use of microorganisms in technological systems of the fermentation industry. The word fermentation was shaped. The first communal biological sewage plants were erected in big cities such as Berlin, Munich and Paris around the years of 1900.
In the year 1922, Germany began to use biogas by implementing the knowledge about microbial development of methane into a technological scale.
The consequence was the development of fermentation towers for sewage treatment plants. Until 1937, numerous cities have converted their car fleets for biogas operations. In the early 50s, the biogas production had one but short prime time in the agricultural sector in Germany. At that time, around 20 biogas production plants were in operation on farms with more than 40 cows. When the fuel oil was offered cheaply in the mid 50s, the biogas plants fell into oblivion.
Only the oil crises in the 70s called the attention to the biogas technology again. In 1983, approximately 15 companies led the production of biogas plants in their production programme. This led to an operation of more than 100 plants in Germany. Since the beginning of the 1930s, a continuous tradition of the biogas production in the fermentation towers of sewage treatment plants has shown a sophisticated technical state in this branch, so that nowadays a lot of sewage treatment plants mainly gain the energy for the process in this way. But the number of the agricultural plants has steadily risen.
Nowadays electricity and heat generated from biogas makes an important share in the German energy mix. At the end of the year 2007 more than 3,700 biogas plants with a capacity of 1.300 were installed. The share of electricity from biogas added up to 8,9% of the whole production in Germany in 2007.
Formation of Biogas
In contrast to the aerobic degradation of biomass (e.g. carbohydrate to carbon dioxide and water) there are no certain organisms, which are capable of producing biogas directly out of biomass. Only by the concurrence of different groups of microorganisms, the complex reaction sequence of methane fermentation is effected, whereas the following comprehensions count. Aerobic bacteria, which can live without oxygen during the anaerobic processes (fermentation), rate as facultatively as anaerob. Sorts of bacteria which cannot survive with the existence of oxygen are defined as obligatory anaerobic.
The anaerobic degradation of fermenting feedstock passes 4 steps, which are partly effected by different microorganism groups.
1st step
In the so called hydrolysis, fermentational bacteria separate the polymeric combinations such as carbohydrate, proteins and fat by means of enzymes into the respective monomeres. In this reaction, facultative bacteria as well as obligatory anaerobic bacteria are involved.
2nd step
In the second phase, in the so called fermentation and development of acid, the monomeres of the bacteria of the first step are prepared for the further fermentation. The products of the second step are organic acids and alcoholic substances as well as hydrogen (H2), carbon dioxyde (CO2), ammonia (NH4) and hydrogen sulphide (H2S).
3rd step
During the development of ethanoic acid, the so called acetogenesis, the organic acids and alcoholic substances which result from the fermentation phase become acetic acid, hydrogen and carbon dioxid. During the development of acetic acid, known as acetogenesis, the organic acids and alcoholic substances, resulting from the fermentation phase, are transformed to acetic acid, hydrogen and carbon dioxyde. This reaction works endothermically, heat must therefore be added from outside.
4. step
It involves the development of methane or the so-called methanogenese. The obligatory anaerobic methane bacteria transform the acetic or ethanoic acid and the CO2 with molecular hydrogen to methane (CH4). The existance of hydrogen and the combined H2-partial pressure are decisive values for this reaction.
The share of the hydrogen in the origin feedstock is however very small. By the transformation of this hydrogen with the CO2 developed before, the methane producers care for a low H2-partial pressure. A low H2-partial pressure is however esssential for the existance of ethanoic acid bacteria. Consequently, there is a tight symbiosis between bacteria producing hydrogen (ethanoic acid producers) and those consuming hydrogen (methane producers).
The description of the hydrolysis as an own step (1st step) is rather effected because of the process technological reason than of the biological reason. As the hydrolysis is effected by the same organisms as in the fermentation of acids, theses processes should be considered conjointly. But as the hydrolysis is the speed determinant step in the macromolecular combinations such as LLLL, the hydrolysis is considered as an independent step because of process technological aspects.
Starting from biomass with a certain composition (proteins, carbohydrate, fats), the single steps of fermentation are shown under indication of the distribution in percentage.
Bacteria developping methane (step 4) have much higher requirements concerning the living conditions compared to bacteria developping acids (step 3). They are relicts of some passed earth episodes with a reduced atmosphere.
They particularly need:
- anaerobic milieu,
- temperatures between 15°C and 55°C,
- pH-values between 6,5 and 8,0,
- a variety of feedstock which is not that big
- avoidance of retardants, such as heavy metal salts, antibiotics and desinfectants
- existance of trace minerals such as nickel and molybdenum
Bacteria developping methane need a longer reproduction time than bacteria developping acids. Therefore, the speed and the scale of the fermentation depend on the metabolism power of the methane bacteria. Both groups of bacteria develop a symbiosis (biocoenosis). The acid bacteria can only exist when hydrogen and acids are transformed to gasiform final products by the methane bacteria.
On the other hand the methane bacteria need the metabolis products from the acid bacteria. The fermentational effect of the organic waste products and the gas production depend on the composition, on the type of the process operation and on the degree of crushing. At least starch, sugar/pectin, proteins/ peptides, fat, cellulose and hemicellulose can partially be degraded to an anaerobic scale. However, lignin and chitin can not be degraded to an anaerobic scale. As cellulose and hemicellulose are often bound in a matrix with lignin, the degradational effect of these speciation is directly dependend on the content of lignin.