Essay On Biogas

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A. Introduction
Biogas – a term that has been synonymous to the rural culture, a viable alternate to the rapidly depleting conventional sources, a resource whose production is cheaper, and almost cent percent of the raw materials used to produce it get utilised. Owing to the tremendous rise in the fuel consumption, we need to search for substitutes – one that can replace (the already not-so-left resources), revive (a less polluting option) and replenish (the present state of livelihood).
In this report, I’d discuss about one of the adsorption techniques involved in the removal of hydrogen sulphide – a vital component of biogas which needs to be removed from the source gas (apart from water and carbon dioxide which are in excess proportions and others components found in traces).
B. Anaerobic Digestion
Anaerobic Digestion is a natural process where plant and animal materials (biomass) are broken down by micro-organisms in the absence of air.
The nature of the raw materials and the operational conditions used during anaerobic digestion, determine the chemical composition of the biogas. Raw biogas consists mainly of methane (CH4, 40–75%) and carbon dioxide (CO2, 15–60%). Trace amounts of other components such as water (H2O, 5–10%), hydrogen sulphide (H2S, 0.005–2%), siloxanes (0–0.02%), halogenated hydrocarbons (VOC, < 0.6%), ammonia (NH3, <1%), oxygen (O2, 0–1%), carbon monoxide (CO, <0.6%) and nitrogen (N2, 0–2%) can be present depending upon the type of feedstock being digested.
C. Biomethane
Biomethane is pipeline-quality, high BTU methane derived from biogas. A renewable and readily available low-carbon alternative fuel, Biomethane, can be produced locally from organic waste. After it is processed to required standards of purity...

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...anism of the wet streams with no oxygen:
H2S (gas) → H2S (ads) (i)
H2S (ads) → H2S (ads-liq) (ii)
H2S (ads-liq) → HS- (ads) + H+ (iii)
2HS- (ads) + O* (ads) → 2S (ads) + H2O (iv) where H2S (gas), H2S (ads-liq) and H2S (ads) are concentration of hydrogen sulphide in gas, liquid film and adsorbed phases respectively. First, the H2S (gas) is adsorbed onto the carbon surface, followed by the dissolution of H2S (ads) into the water film, then the dissociation of the H2S (ads-liq) into ions concluding with the surface reaction with oxygen functional group.
Assuming the equilibrium isotherm to behave linearly, I’ve considered the Thomas model (Thomas, 1944), that uses Langmuir isotherm for equilibrium and 2nd order reversible reaction kinetics based on ion exchange theory.
Image courtesy: google/images/activated carbon
The expression for adsorption kinetics is described as

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