IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/engenv/v33y2022i7p1326-1345.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Comparative exergy and energy assessment of a biogas plant with biological purification process: A multigeneration system

Author

Listed:
  • Mahmood Mahmoodi-Eshkaftaki
  • Hossein Rahmanian-Koushkaki
  • Mohammad Rafie Rafiee

Abstract

The improved systems of biogas production usually increase the energy consumption of biogas plants. Therefore, it is very important to determine an appropriate improvement system to increase plant efficiency. For this purpose, a biogas plant with a biological self-purification system was energetically and exergetically analyzed, and its performance was compared with that of a base plant. To keep the temperature of digesters up to 310.2 K, a solar water heater was used. It was able to maintain a high level of efficiency for both plants. The energy analysis of the plants indicated that the overall energetic efficiency of both plants was very close. The exergy analysis of the plants showed that the overall exergetic efficiency of the self-purification biogas plant (76.24%) was higher than that of the base plant (66.78%). This is due to the fact that the total exergy destruction rate of the self-purification plant was lower than that of the base plant and the exergy rate of biogas output of the self-purification plant was higher than that of the base plant. The exergy analyses of both plant components showed that although the highest exergy destruction rates were attributed to the principle digester and separation unit, they showed the highest exergetic improvement potential rates. These results confirm that the digesters in biogas plants have a great potential to be improved exergetically, and the self-purification system is a suitable improvement system to increase the plant efficiency exergetically.

Suggested Citation

  • Mahmood Mahmoodi-Eshkaftaki & Hossein Rahmanian-Koushkaki & Mohammad Rafie Rafiee, 2022. "Comparative exergy and energy assessment of a biogas plant with biological purification process: A multigeneration system," Energy & Environment, , vol. 33(7), pages 1326-1345, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:engenv:v:33:y:2022:i:7:p:1326-1345
    DOI: 10.1177/0958305X211041722
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0958305X211041722
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0958305X211041722?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    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:sae:engenv:v:33:y:2022:i:7:p:1326-1345. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.