IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v16y2023i17p6343-d1230997.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Biogas Steam Reforming in Wastewater Treatment Plants: Opportunities and Challenges

Author

Listed:
  • Juan Félix González

    (Department of Applied Physics, University of Extremadura, Avda. De Elvas s/n, 06006 Badajoz, Spain)

  • Carmen María Álvez-Medina

    (Department of Applied Physics, University of Extremadura, Avda. De Elvas s/n, 06006 Badajoz, Spain)

  • Sergio Nogales-Delgado

    (Department of Applied Physics, University of Extremadura, Avda. De Elvas s/n, 06006 Badajoz, Spain)

Abstract

Hydrogen as an energy vector is going to play an important role in the global energy mix. On the other hand, wastewater management has become a worldwide concern, as urban settlements have been considerably increasing for decades. Consequently, biodigestion to produce biogas (rich in methane) in water treatment plants could be an interesting starting point to obtain a valuable gas that can be converted into hydrogen through steam reforming. The aim of this work was to review the main aspects concerning steam reforming of biogas from wastewater treatment plants. For this purpose, the whole chain, from water treatment to hydrogen production and purification, was considered, paying attention to the main challenges and new technologies for its optimization. Thus, a wide range of possibilities is offered, from direct energy use of syngas to high purification of hydrogen (mainly through pressure swing adsorption or membrane reactors), presenting advantages and disadvantages. In any case, the role of catalysts seems to be essential, and aspects such as hydrogen sulfide and coke deposition control should be addressed. In conclusion, biogas steam reforming applied to wastewater treatment plants is a reality, with serious possibilities for its global implementation at the industrial level, according to techno-economic assessment.

Suggested Citation

  • Juan Félix González & Carmen María Álvez-Medina & Sergio Nogales-Delgado, 2023. "Biogas Steam Reforming in Wastewater Treatment Plants: Opportunities and Challenges," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(17), pages 1-35, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:16:y:2023:i:17:p:6343-:d:1230997
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/17/6343/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/17/6343/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fonts, Isabel & Gea, Gloria & Azuara, Manuel & Ábrego, Javier & Arauzo, Jesús, 2012. "Sewage sludge pyrolysis for liquid production: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 16(5), pages 2781-2805.
    2. Laura A. Pellegrini & Matteo Gilardi & Fabio Giudici & Elvira Spatolisano, 2021. "New Solvents for CO 2 and H 2 S Removal from Gaseous Streams," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-40, October.
    3. Georgia-Christina Mitraka & Konstantinos N. Kontogiannopoulos & Maria Batsioula & George F. Banias & Anastasios I. Zouboulis & Panagiotis G. Kougias, 2022. "A Comprehensive Review on Pretreatment Methods for Enhanced Biogas Production from Sewage Sludge," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(18), pages 1-56, September.
    4. del Valle-Zermeño, R. & Romero-Güiza, M.S. & Chimenos, J.M. & Formosa, J. & Mata-Alvarez, J. & Astals, S., 2015. "Biogas upgrading using MSWI bottom ash: An integrated municipal solid waste management," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 184-189.
    5. Su, Bosheng & Lin, Feng & Ma, Jingyuan & Huang, Shenghua & Wang, Yilin & Zhang, Xiaodong & Han, Wei & Wang, Hongsheng, 2022. "System integration of multi-grade exploitation of biogas chemical energy driven by solar energy," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 241(C).
    6. Regimantas Dauknys & Aušra Mažeikienė, 2023. "Process Improvement of Biogas Production from Sewage Sludge Applying Iron Oxides-Based Additives," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(7), pages 1-15, April.
    7. Mohammad Ghorbani & Petr Konvalina & Anna Walkiewicz & Reinhard W. Neugschwandtner & Marek Kopecký & Kazem Zamanian & Wei-Hsin Chen & Daniel Bucur, 2022. "Feasibility of Biochar Derived from Sewage Sludge to Promote Sustainable Agriculture and Mitigate GHG Emissions—A Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(19), pages 1-23, October.
    8. Wang, Hanxi & Xu, Jianling & Sheng, Lianxi & Liu, Xuejun, 2018. "Effect of addition of biogas slurry for anaerobic fermentation of deer manure on biogas production," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 165(PB), pages 411-418.
    9. Braga, Lúcia Bollini & Silveira, Jose Luz & da Silva, Marcio Evaristo & Tuna, Celso Eduardo & Machin, Einara Blanco & Pedroso, Daniel Travieso, 2013. "Hydrogen production by biogas steam reforming: A technical, economic and ecological analysis," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 166-173.
    10. Aragón-Briceño, C.I. & Pozarlik, A.K. & Bramer, E.A. & Niedzwiecki, Lukasz & Pawlak-Kruczek, H. & Brem, G., 2021. "Hydrothermal carbonization of wet biomass from nitrogen and phosphorus approach: A review," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 401-415.
    11. Park, Min-Ju & Kim, Hak-Min & Gu, Yun-Jeong & Jeong, Dae-Woon, 2023. "Optimization of biogas-reforming conditions considering carbon formation, hydrogen production, and energy efficiencies," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 265(C).
    12. Hubert Prask & Małgorzata Fugol & Arkadiusz Dyjakon & Liliana Głąb & Józef Sowiński & Alena Whitaker, 2023. "The Impact of Sewage Sludge-Sweet Sorghum Blends on the Biogas Production for Energy Purposes," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(5), pages 1-11, February.
    13. Parente, Marcelo & Soria, M.A. & Madeira, Luis M., 2020. "Hydrogen and/or syngas production through combined dry and steam reforming of biogas in a membrane reactor: A thermodynamic study," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 1254-1264.
    14. George Mallouppas & Elias Ar. Yfantis & Constantina Ioannou & Andreas Paradeisiotis & Angelos Ktoris, 2023. "Application of Biogas and Biomethane as Maritime Fuels: A Review of Research, Technology Development, Innovation Proposals, and Market Potentials," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(4), pages 1-25, February.
    15. Josipa Pavičić & Karolina Novak Mavar & Vladislav Brkić & Katarina Simon, 2022. "Biogas and Biomethane Production and Usage: Technology Development, Advantages and Challenges in Europe," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-28, April.
    16. Manara, P. & Zabaniotou, A., 2012. "Towards sewage sludge based biofuels via thermochemical conversion – A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 16(5), pages 2566-2582.
    17. Nestor Sanchez & David Rodríguez-Fontalvo & Bernay Cifuentes & Nelly M. Cantillo & Miguel Ángel Uribe Laverde & Martha Cobo, 2021. "Biomass Potential for Producing Power via Green Hydrogen," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(24), pages 1-18, December.
    18. Siti Zaharah Roslan & Siti Fairuz Zainudin & Alijah Mohd Aris & Khor Bee Chin & Mohibah Musa & Ahmad Rafizan Mohamad Daud & Syed Shatir A. Syed Hassan, 2023. "Hydrothermal Carbonization of Sewage Sludge into Solid Biofuel: Influences of Process Conditions on the Energetic Properties of Hydrochar," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(5), pages 1-16, March.
    19. Mao, Chunlan & Feng, Yongzhong & Wang, Xiaojiao & Ren, Guangxin, 2015. "Review on research achievements of biogas from anaerobic digestion," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 540-555.
    20. Yang, Liangcheng & Ge, Xumeng & Wan, Caixia & Yu, Fei & Li, Yebo, 2014. "Progress and perspectives in converting biogas to transportation fuels," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 1133-1152.
    21. Minutillo, Mariagiovanna & Perna, Alessandra & Sorce, Alessandro, 2020. "Green hydrogen production plants via biogas steam and autothermal reforming processes: energy and exergy analyses," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 277(C).
    22. Elena Goldan & Valentin Nedeff & Narcis Barsan & Mihaela Culea & Claudia Tomozei & Mirela Panainte-Lehadus & Emilian Mosnegutu, 2022. "Evaluation of the Use of Sewage Sludge Biochar as a Soil Amendment—A Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-22, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zheng, Lei & Cheng, Shikun & Han, Yanzhao & Wang, Min & Xiang, Yue & Guo, Jiali & Cai, Di & Mang, Heinz-Peter & Dong, Taili & Li, Zifu & Yan, Zhengxu & Men, Yu, 2020. "Bio-natural gas industry in China: Current status and development," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    2. Dang, Chengxiong & Xia, Huanhuan & Yuan, Shuting & Wei, Xingchuan & Cai, Weiquan, 2022. "Green hydrogen production from sorption-enhanced steam reforming of biogas over a Pd/Ni–CaO-mayenite multifunctional catalyst," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 201(P1), pages 314-322.
    3. Syed-Hassan, Syed Shatir A. & Wang, Yi & Hu, Song & Su, Sheng & Xiang, Jun, 2017. "Thermochemical processing of sewage sludge to energy and fuel: Fundamentals, challenges and considerations," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 888-913.
    4. Sun, Qie & Li, Hailong & Yan, Jinying & Liu, Longcheng & Yu, Zhixin & Yu, Xinhai, 2015. "Selection of appropriate biogas upgrading technology-a review of biogas cleaning, upgrading and utilisation," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 521-532.
    5. Josipa Pavičić & Karolina Novak Mavar & Vladislav Brkić & Katarina Simon, 2022. "Biogas and Biomethane Production and Usage: Technology Development, Advantages and Challenges in Europe," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-28, April.
    6. Ma, Shuaishuai & Wang, Hongliang & Li, Jingxue & Fu, Yu & Zhu, Wanbin, 2019. "Methane production performances of different compositions in lignocellulosic biomass through anaerobic digestion," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    7. Wang, Chengxin & Bi, Haobo & Lin, Qizhao & Jiang, Xuedan & Jiang, Chunlong, 2020. "Co-pyrolysis of sewage sludge and rice husk by TG–FTIR–MS: Pyrolysis behavior, kinetics, and condensable/non-condensable gases characteristics," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 1048-1066.
    8. Ma, Yan-Chao & Zheng, Yang & Wang, Li-Hua & Sun, Bao-Guo & Zhao, Mou-Ming & Huang, Ming-Quan & Wu, Ji-Hong & Li, He-He & Sun, Xiao-Tao, 2023. "Integrated distilled spent grain with husk utilization: Current situation, trend, and design," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    9. Praspaliauskas, M. & Pedišius, N., 2017. "A review of sludge characteristics in Lithuania's wastewater treatment plants and perspectives of its usage in thermal processes," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 899-907.
    10. Lombardi, L. & Carnevale, E.A., 2016. "Analysis of an innovative process for landfill gas quality improvement," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 1107-1117.
    11. Wang, Pengya & Wang, Jianxiao & Jin, Ruiyang & Li, Gengyin & Zhou, Ming & Xia, Qing, 2022. "Integrating biogas in regional energy systems to achieve near-zero carbon emissions," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 322(C).
    12. Naqvi, Salman Raza & Tariq, Rumaisa & Hameed, Zeeshan & Ali, Imtiaz & Naqvi, Muhammad & Chen, Wei-Hsin & Ceylan, Selim & Rashid, Harith & Ahmad, Junaid & Taqvi, Syed A. & Shahbaz, Muhammad, 2019. "Pyrolysis of high ash sewage sludge: Kinetics and thermodynamic analysis using Coats-Redfern method," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 854-860.
    13. Tang, Siqi & Zheng, Chunmiao & Yan, Feng & Shao, Ningning & Tang, Yuanyuan & Zhang, Zuotai, 2018. "Product characteristics and kinetics of sewage sludge pyrolysis driven by alkaline earth metals," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 921-932.
    14. Liu, Yang & Ran, Chunmei & Siddiqui, Azka R. & Mao, Xiao & Kang, Qinhao & Fu, Jie & Deng, Zeyu & Song, Yongmeng & Jiang, Zhihui & Zhang, Tianhao & Ao, Wenya & Dai, Jianjun, 2018. "Pyrolysis of textile dyeing sludge in fluidized bed: Characterization and analysis of pyrolysis products," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 165(PA), pages 720-730.
    15. Patel, Savankumar & Kundu, Sazal & Halder, Pobitra & Rickards, Lauren & Paz-Ferreiro, Jorge & Surapaneni, Aravind & Madapusi, Srinivasan & Shah, Kalpit, 2019. "Thermogravimetric Analysis of biosolids pyrolysis in the presence of mineral oxides," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 707-716.
    16. Materazzi, Massimiliano & Holt, Andrew, 2019. "Experimental analysis and preliminary assessment of an integrated thermochemical process for production of low-molecular weight biofuels from municipal solid waste (MSW)," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 663-678.
    17. Usmani, Zeba & Sharma, Minaxi & Karpichev, Yevgen & Pandey, Ashok & Chander Kuhad, Ramesh & Bhat, Rajeev & Punia, Rajesh & Aghbashlo, Mortaza & Tabatabaei, Meisam & Gupta, Vijai Kumar, 2020. "Advancement in valorization technologies to improve utilization of bio-based waste in bioeconomy context," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    18. Sahoo, Kamalakanta & Mani, Sudhagar, 2019. "Economic and environmental impacts of an integrated-state anaerobic digestion system to produce compressed natural gas from organic wastes and energy crops," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    19. Nahar, Gaurav & Mote, Dhananjay & Dupont, Valerie, 2017. "Hydrogen production from reforming of biogas: Review of technological advances and an Indian perspective," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 1032-1052.
    20. Mohammad Ghorbani & Petr Konvalina & Anna Walkiewicz & Reinhard W. Neugschwandtner & Marek Kopecký & Kazem Zamanian & Wei-Hsin Chen & Daniel Bucur, 2022. "Feasibility of Biochar Derived from Sewage Sludge to Promote Sustainable Agriculture and Mitigate GHG Emissions—A Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(19), pages 1-23, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:16:y:2023:i:17:p:6343-:d:1230997. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.