Innovate Ukraine: Advanced biomethane production from microalgae grown in digestate from biogas plantsInnovate Ukraine
We are happy to announce project “Advanced biomethane production from microalgae grown in digestate from biogas plants” has been successful in the “Innovate Ukraine – support for the energy restoration of Ukraine” competition funded by UK International Development and hosted by British Embassy Kyiv.
The project will be implemented for 2 years by a consortium of Ukrainian and UK partners: The University of Manchester (UK, administrative head, technology lead), ALGAECYTES LIMITED (UK, commercial partner), PJSC “MHP ECO ENERGY” (Ukraine, commercial partner) and Bioenergy Association of Ukraine (scientific partner).
The Innovate Ukraine competition, funded by UK International Development and hosted by British Embassy Kyiv.
On May 2, the official opening of the Innovate Ukraine program took place with the announcement of the winning projects of the competition. Out of 13 winning projects, the team of the Bioenergy Association of Ukraine will participate in the implementation of two.
Read more about the program and another project “Development of Business Model for Biomethane Production in Ukraine” at the link.
About the project “Advanced biomethane production from microalgae grown in digestate from biogas plants”
Project goals:
- A novel cost- and energy-efficient microalgae cultivation process in biogas digestate.
- A novel cost- and energy-efficient biomethane production process through the anaerobic digestion (AD) of the harvested microalgae.
The project will combine experiments from the laboratory to the pilot scale – including microalgae cultivation in flat panel and tubular photobioreactors with new computational models for microalgae cultivation and anaerobic digestion, for process optimisation and techno-economic analysis.
The idea of the work is based on the hypothesis of the possibility of effective cultivation of microalgae in digestate from biogas plants, which contains the macro- and microelements necessary for the microalgae growth, with the addition of CO2 obtained from the upgrading of biogas to biomethane, and the subsequent conversion of the harvested microalgae into biogas and biomethane. As a result, this will allow, to achieve a more complete conversion of organic carbon contained in raw materials for biogas production into gaseous energy carrier – CH4.
Microalgae are promising as a good co-substrate for anaerobic digestion in conjunction with other substrates such as straw, what in turn can stipulate further wider involvement of straw for biomethane production.
Details of the project can be found in the given presentation (click “Download presentation”).
Download presentation
