The digestion of biomass by bacteria in a low oxygen environment, such as at the bottom of a lake, produces biogas, a mixture of carbon dioxide and methane. Since biogas can be used as a fuel, this process can be harnessed at an industrial scale in an anaerobic digester to convert biogenically derived material, such as food waste, farmyard slurry, or energy crops, into a valuable product. The biogas can be burned to generate electricity, however upgrading the biogas, by removing the carbon...
Natural gas extracted from underground wells quite often contains large proportions of the acid gases carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide, making it a so-called “sour” gas. Sour gas must be “sweetened” before it is ready for market by removing these acid gases. The US Energy Information Administration expects the global demand for natural gas to increase by over 40% between 2018 and 2050, implying a significant growth in the world natural gas refining capacity.
As an energy storage medium, hydrogen is at least as versatile as carbon based fuels finding potential applications in domestic and industrial heating, transportation, and electricity generation. Taking into account this inherent versatility and the fact that burning it produces only water as a by-product, the transition from the carbon economy we have today to a hydrogen economy in the future is seen by many to be the ultimate solution to the climate crisis. Critical to this transition will...