Anaerobic Digestion System Innovations

Recent Developments in Anaerobic Digestion Systems

It is still not fully realized by the public that a whole new renewable (biogas) energy source is available, but awareness is improving.

The energy source for biogas is larger than many have assumed, the feed materials needed are quite literally at the feet of many of us as in the waste lying around:

• in the home as organic household garbage
• in the office and factory as what is known as “C and I” waste (commercial and industrial waste), and
• both on farms and everywhere around us as crop waste
• plus dead and dying natural vegetation from our gardens, parks, and woodlands, and more.

Until around 2010 the anaerobic digestion systems which were emerging were very simple and basic.

They were built on farms, and at sewage works, and only in the undeveloped nations were they applied to households in the home and surrounding property.

But, now as the industrialized world seeks to de-carbonize its economy the trend is for a whole new range of sophisticated anaerobic digestion system innovations to pass through development and make it into production.  Such new AD systems and just starting to emerge, and rate of systems development is expected to continue.

To show just how strongly an anaerobic digestion system revolution is emerging just read our list. All the following innovations have moved from concept to commercially available products since the start of this decade:

• biogas upgrading systems which enable biogas plant operators to remove the impurities from biogas and bring it up to the consistent quality in national natural gas distribution systems so that it can not only be injected into those systems, but also sold as a transport fuel and used as an alternative to CNG.
• the most advanced of those (membrane) systems also removes the carbon dioxide in a pure form so that, for the first time the CO2 can be sold as an additional revenue source for AD Plant operators
• clean, reliable and when operated correctly substantially odour free home biogas systems for use in the developed nations
• hydrogen cells which can use biogas as their direct energy source
• systems which create fully sanitized and dried solid digestate which provides an ideal bedding material, with better characteristics than straw, for animals kept under cover
• new low temperature anaerobic digestion systems such as the one described in the video at the bottom of this page
• astonishing high temperature and pressure digesters which use bugs extracted from deep under the ocean and which are so tough that they thrive in volcanic fumerols, meaning that digesting our waste is just so easy for them!

These are just a few of the stunning anaerobic digestion system innovations which have emerged so far. We can expect to see many more in the next decade. Science has really only just begun to research all the many and varied uses for the multitude of organic waste materials that have, until now been discounted as “good for nothing garbage”!