Optimising Biogas Plants

Keeping theory to a minimum without sacrificing scientific rigour, this comprehensive guide offers readers a practical approach to boosting the profitability of their biogas plants. The techniques explained allow for an assessment of a biogas plant throughout its entire life cycle, from critical review of the business plan to the selection of retrofits to recover additional income from the process by-products. This book:

• Details how to apply the scientific method to the review of biogas projects, considering technical flaws induced by marketing and human factors like cognitive bias
• Explains a method for the quick startup of digesters
• Proposes a thermodynamic approach to the selection of biogas upgrading solutions, making the choice independent of marketing claims or biased information
• Provides a summary of possible marginal incomes from biogenic CO2, residual heat, and digestate
• Includes the latest technological developments in laboratory measurement instruments and techniques beyond the mere biochemical methane potential (BMP) test
• Includes a guideline to perform a technical due diligence, with examples of the most frequent errors in biogas plant business plans

Building upon the laboratory test techniques published in the author’s complementary book, Managing Biogas Plants, this text helps readers who are investing in or managing existing industrial biomass plants to optimize processes and profit.