Innovate Ukraine: Advanced biomethane from microalgae
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 project involves researching the potential for advanced biomethane production from microalgae grown in the digestate of biogas plants.
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.
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.
Project objectives:
- An optimised cultivation process in a tubular photobioreactor (PBR) with high total solid (TS) productivity.
- An optimised cultivation process in flat-plate PBR with productivity around 5 g/(L·day).
- A validated predictive model for microalgae cultivation in PBRs.
- A high productivity microalgae AD process for biomethane production.
- A high productivity AD process using an optimal microalgae-straw mix.
- A robust scaled-up microalgae-to-biomethane process.
- A TEA tool for validated analysis of microalgae-to-biomethane processes.
- Market analysis report.
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:
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The Innovate Ukraine competition, funded by UK International Development and hosted by British Embassy Kyiv.