Integrated biological approaches for high-grade biomethane vehicle fuel production from food waste

This project will investigate the production of low-carbon, high-grade biomethane from food waste for use as a vehicle fuel. 
 
Biomethane gives cleaner vehicle emissions; using it to replace conventional vehicle fuels like petrol and diesel could reduce vehicular emissions by about 60–80%, which could help to cut the UK’s emissions by 6% by 2030. 
 
Anaerobic digestion involves the breakdown of organic materials in the absence of oxygen to produce gas (biogas) composed of 50-70% methane and 30-50% carbon dioxide which is commonly used for electricity generation. While only the methane fraction of biogas can be used to produce energy, biogas can be ‘upgraded’ to contain over 95% methane (biomethane), which will further reduce the greenhouse gas footprint from biogas use and also make it a suitable replacement for conventional transport fuel such as petrol and diesel. However, the common methods used to upgrade biogas to biomethane are often associated with high energy demand, additional waste generation and the potential release of the trapped carbon dioxide, which reduces the overall energy yield and greenhouse reduction potential of biomethane. 

This project is investigating a novel alternative called biomethanation, which is the enhancement of a key reaction that occurs during anaerobic digestion, aided by the addition of hydrogen to the anaerobic digestion process. The novelty of the proposed research includes the use of fungi to break down the difficult-to-digest fraction of food waste to glucose, which will allow enhanced production of hydrogen and the use of the hydrogen to support biogas upgrade to high-grade biomethane.