Novel hydrogen-powered biotechnologies to upgrade biogas to biomethane

Objetivo

The urgent need to reach EU independence from fossil fuel imports, decarbonization and circular economy encourages the development of sustainable technologies for the production of biofuels and high added-value products. Current biogas upgrading methods, including physicochemical technologies, involve high operational costs and environmental impacts, with limited efficiency in removing contaminants such as VOCs and H2S. Conventional methods, such as scrubbing and adsorption, are energy-intensive and often lead to CO2 emissions, while existing biological methods face challenges with gas-liquid transfer and biogas contaminant removal. Hyd2Meth will develop and optimize a new generation of bioreactors for the pretreatment and biomethanation of biogas from landfills and enclosed anaerobic digesters. This objective will be pursued through a multidisciplinary strategy focusing on i) the optimization of microbiological processes involved in the acidophilic anoxic biodegradation of H2S and VOCs, ii) the engineering of two-phase partitioning bioreactor for hydrophobic VOCs removal and iii) the anaerobic conversion of CO2 to CH₄ using renewable H2, within advanced bioreactor configurations based on a direct gas-biofilm contact. Hyd2Meth will move beyond the state of the art by employing flow cytometry to detect and isolate methanogens based on the autofluorescence of the F420 cofactor. This innovative approach allows for a precise differentiation and sorting of methanogens under anaerobic conditions. The incorporation of this technique represents a pioneering step in enhancing the specificity and efficiency of methanogen enrichment processes. Hyd2Meth will position biological biogas upgrading as a cost-effective process easy to implement in the biogas sector. The fellow, Dr. Marycz, will conduct this action at University of Valladolid under the supervision of Dr. Muñoz, with secondments at FCC-Medio Ambiente and Ghent University.