After half a year of non-stop operation of the first biogas processing plant, ETW is pleased with the successful product launch of its new processing technology.
For four years, biogas has been produced from maize, grass, and whole plant silage at the Laupheim site, about 30 km south of Ulm, Germany. The raw biogas is pro- cessed by Erdgas Südwest GmbH and made available to end customers in the form of biomethane over the own natural gas grid. In 2008, the first biogas processing plant was commissioned at the site. The pressure swing adsorption of Schmack Carbotech processes about 600 standard m3 of raw biogas an hour. This amount is sufficient to continually supply about 2,000 four-person households with electricity.
To respond to the growing demand for biomethane, the operator decided to expand the production capacity. In view of the practical experience from the operation and the knowledge of the advantages of dry pressure swing adsorption, the operator opted for a biomethane system of ETW Energietechnik. One of the main reasons for this deci- sion: The specialists from Moers, Germany, had the best solution for the challenge of integrating the new technology in the existing array.
Before the humid raw biogas enters the adsorption tanks, hydrogen sulphide is remo-ved and water is condensed out. The residual humidity is removed as a side effect of the pressure swing adsorption. The smart control by means of which the adsorption columns are connected ensures that the product gas purity reaches a stable methane content of 98 percent despite varying raw biogas compositions and quantities. Continual quality measurements guarantee short reaction times. Subsequently, the biomethane is forwarded to the feed-in station that serves as the interface to the natural gas grid with a pressure of about 6 bar.
For the first time, the plant in Laupheim generates biomethane with the PSA process control developed by ETW, which differs significantly from the established systems in Germany. The result is an extraordinarily high methane content in the product gas with minimal methane losses and rock-bottom power consumption. Thus, 98 percent of
the supplied methane can be delivered to the natural gas grid. The methane loss of 2 percent is returned to the biological process of the biogas plant via an after-burning unit in the form of useful heat. Together with the recovery of the compression heat, a total heat output of 140 kW at 80 Grad Celsius can be separated from the gas processing.
