Lessons learned from an experimental campaign on promoting energy content of renewable biogas by injecting H2 during anaerobic digestion

Abstract

Direct injection of H2 to an anaerobic reactor enables biological fixation of CO2 into CH4 (biomethanation) and consequently boosts methane content in the produced biogas. However, there has been only a small amount of literature reporting results on this technique in a continuous reactor framework to date. To fill this gap, the present study devoted an experimental work to direct H2 addition to a fed-batch semi-continuous reactor, where the injected H2 concentration increased gradually (~3–30 mmol), spanning a moderate operational period of about 70 days. As the results revealed, the reactor continued anaerobic operation for each level of H2 dosing and produced an average methane content in the biogas ranging between 65% and 72%. The exhibited biogas upgrading trend appeared to be under-developed, and thereby suggests the need for further research.