Investigation of Innovative Processes for

Biogas Up-grading
Renato Baciocchi, Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile – University of Roma Tor Vergata, Italy
Ennio Carnevale, Dipartimento di Energetica, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Italy
Andrea Corti, Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Informazione, Università degli Studi di Siena, Italy
Giulia Costa, Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile – University of Roma Tor Vergata
Xavier Gabarrell, Department of Chemical Engineering, Edifici Q, Universitat Autonoma de
Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
Lidia Lombardi, Dipartimento di Energetica, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Italy
Peter Mostbauer, Institute of Waste Management, University of Natural Resources and Life
Sciences, Vienna, Austria
Francecso Olivieri, Centro Servizi Ambiente Impianti S.p.A. – Terranuova Bracciolini (AR), Italy
Tommaso Olivieri, Dipartimento di Energetica, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Italy
Alessandro Paradisi, Dipartimento di Energetica, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Italy
Katherine Starr, Department of Chemical Engineering, Edifici Q, Universitat Autonoma de
Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
Gara Villalba, Department of Chemical Engineering, Edifici Q, Universitat Autonoma de
Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
Laura Zanchi, Dipartimento di Energetica, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Italy
Daniela Zingaretti, Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile – University of Roma Tor Vergata

CONTACT

Lidia Lombardi
Dipartimento di Energetica, Università degli Studi di Firenze
Via Santa Marta, 3 – 50139 Firenze
Telephone: +39 055 4796349
Facsimile: +39 055 4796343
Email: lidia.lombardi@unifi.it

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Two innovative up-grading processes were proposed, investigated and preliminarly assessed in the
frame of the UPGAS-LOWCO2 project. Both the proposed processes were studied by preliminary
laboratory and simulation analysis. Main results of this phase are reported in the paper. At present
two pilot plants are under construction in order to demonstrate the technical feasibility of the
processes, that will be also evaluated from economic point of view and environmental perspective
by Life Cycle Assessment. The state of advancement of the work and some preliminary
considerations are reported in the paper.

1. INTRODUCTION

Among the renewables, biogas industry in EU is growing, reaching about 8,3 Mtoe in 2009 with
more than 6.000 biogas plants. The main source is agriculture and others (52%), then landfills
(36%) and sewage plants (12%).
Biogas produced in AD-plants – fed with a variety of bio-materials which can be waste or energy
crops - or landfill sites is primarily composed of methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) with
smaller amounts of hydrogen sulphide (H2S) and ammonia (NH3). Trace amounts of hydrogen (H2),
nitrogen (N2), saturated or halogenated carbohydrates and oxygen (O2) are occasionally present in
the biogas. Usually, the gas is saturated with water vapour and may contain dust particles and
organic silicon compounds (e.g siloxanes).
The heating value of biogas is determined mainly by the methane content of the gas.
There are four basic ways biogas can be utilized which are production of heat and steam; electricity
production/ co-generation; vehicle fuel; production of chemicals. The main utilisation of biogas - is
governed by national frameworks like the tax system, subsidies, availability of gas and heat grids.
Worldwide, biogas is mainly used for electricity production whereas in Sweden and in Switzerland
a growing portion of the biogas is used in the transport sector. The major driver defining the way
for biogas utilisation is the compensation of the energy, i.e. electricity or (upgraded) biogas. Most
of the European countries have increased feed-in tariffs for electricity. However, using biogas as
vehicle fuel or injecting the gas into the gas grid are applications that are gaining more and more
interest. After proper upgrading - i.e. contaminants and carbon dioxide removal - biogas might be
fed into the distribution grid for natural gas. The deregulation of the natural gas market in Europe
has opened the possibility to find new customers for upgraded biogas via the gas grid. There is no
international technical standard for biogas injection but some countries have developed national
standards and procedures for biogas injection. Some countries like Sweden, Switzerland, Germany
and France have a standard for injecting biogas into the natural gas grid. The standards have been
set to avoid contamination of the gas grid or end use. Demands on Wobbe index have been set to
avoid influence on gas measurements and end use. In the standards there are limits on certain
components for instance sulphur, oxygen, particles and water dew point, whereas a minimum
methane purity of around 96% is required. These demands are in most cases possible to achieve
with existing upgrading processes. In some cases landfill gas can be difficult to upgrade to
sufficient quality due to large nitrogen contents.
There are several incentives for using the gas grid for biogas distribution. One important advantage
is that the grid connects the production site with more densely populated areas which enables the
gas to reach new customers. Furthermore, injecting biogas into the gas grid improves the local
security of the supply. This is an important factor since most of the countries consume more gas
than they produce.
There are several cases - throughout Europe - where biogas upgrading is applied with the aim of
using the gas in vehicles or to inject it into the natural gas grid (www.biogasmax.eu,
www.gashighway.net)
Presently, more than 150 upgrading plants exist in EU: 53 in Germany; 48 in Sweeden; 23 in
Switzerland; 10 in The Netherlands; 6 in Austria; 4 in Spain; 3 in United Kingdom; 2 in France; 1
in Italy. Injection into natural gas grid in is applied in 9 countries (AT, FR, DE, LX, NL, NR, SE,
CH, UK). Biomethane is used as vehicle fuel in 5 countries (SE, FR, CH, DE, AT).
Concerning Italy, the only existing plant – for up-grading landfill gas - uses the biomethane to fuel
their own Natural Gas Vehicles (NGVs).
In Spain, one industrial scale upgrading plant, which aims at injecting gas into the grid, is located in
Madrid (4.000 Nm3/h of landfill gas). It was built in 2009 with water scrubbing technology. Due to
the lack of legislation to inject the biomethane into the natural gas grid, they are using biomethane
in an Internal Combustion Engine. Another industrial scale plant - with amine scrubbing - of around
125 Nm3/h is located at Vacarisas landfill, operated by HERA Amasa. They use biomethane to
power the NGVs of the company. A pilot plant in Murcia of 10 Nm3/h (operated by EMUASA,
Agbar group) with amine scrubbing. They use biomethane to power one NGVs of the company.
Both in Italy and Spain a legislation concerned with the biomethane injection into the natural gas
grid is still missing, even if in Italy the technical regulation for biomethane injection is expected by
the end of the present year.
There are several different commercial methods for reducing carbon dioxide. Most common are
High Pressure Water Scrubbing (HPWS), amine scrubbing, Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) with
adsorption on activated carbon. New technologies are, for example, cryogenic upgrading, molecular
sieves and separation membranes. When removing carbon dioxide from the biogas stream small
amounts of methane are also removed. It is important to keep these methane losses low for
economical and environmental reasons and not to lose energy content.
The available commercial technologies for removing carbon dioxide have the common feature of
removing it from biogas without caring about the final capture of the carbon dioxide itself. This
means that removed CO2 is then remitted to the atmosphere during the system regeneration phase.
For example, when CO2 removal is achieved by means of absorption with liquid solution, the load
solution (containing absorbed CO2) is regenerated emitting CO2 to the atmosphere. The same
happens with regeneration of activated carbon when PSA is applied. In some cases, in which
absorption takes place using water without regeneration, CO2 is discharged with used water and
released to the atmosphere. This is actually not an effective contribution to greenhouse gas
emissions, since carbon dioxide contained in the biogas is of biogenic origin.
As a matter of fact, the innovative aspect, proposed in the frame of the European Life+ Project
UPGAS-LOWCO2 (LIFE08/ENV/IT/000429), is to apply carbon dioxide removal methods
accompanied by its capture, in order not to emit again to the atmosphere the carbon dioxide
removed from the biogas. The subtraction of the carbon dioxide of biogenic origin from the
atmosphere can contribute as a negative emission (sink) to the overall greenhouse balance. Further,
the proposed methods have also other specific features particularly desirable form an environmental
point of view.
The UPGAS-LOWCO2 project started on January 2010 and it is expected to finish the planned
activities within June 2012. The project consortium is leaded by the Dipartimento di Energetica of
the University of Florence which works in close collaboration with other four partners: Department
of Civil Engineering of the University of Rome “Tor Vergata”; Department of Chemical
Engineering of the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona; the Institute of Waste Management,
University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna, and Centro Servizi Ambiente
Impianti S.p.a. which hosts the pilot plants in the landfill of Casa Rota (Terranuova Bracciolini, IT).
More details on the project activities and updated news can be found on www.upgas.eu.

2. INNOVATIVE PROCESSES

The main aim of the project was to demonstrate the technical, economic and environmental
feasibility of two innovative methods for up-grading the biogas. The main innovative point of the
two proposed methods is to associate to the CO2 removal also its capture (that is not performed in
the conventional up-grading methods, which use to release the removed CO2 to the atmosphere), in
order to contribute to a negative balance of the atmospheric CO2. In order to achieve this goal, two
innovative processes were proposed and studied.
Both the proposed processes have the common feature, which is the use of industrial residues for
the carbon dioxide capture and storage process, in order to keep the lowest possible the operating
costs. The industrial residues that are considered are bottom ash (BA) and Air Pollution Control
residues (APC) from Waste-to-Energy plants. These solid residues are characterized by a high
content of alkaline earth metals, calcium in particular, in the form of hydroxides, oxides or silicates.
The first method is based on CO2 chemical absorption by means of an alkali aqueous solution
associated to load solution regeneration using APC. This method will be addressed in the following
as Alkali with Regeneration (AwR).
The second method is based on direct CO2 adsorption on bottom ash, by means of gas/solid direct
contact process and it is here named BABIU (Bottom Ash BIogas Upgrading).

2.1 Alkali with Regeneration process

AwR method is based on chemical absorption of carbon dioxide with an alkaline aqueous solution.
Carbon dioxide is first physically absorbed in the liquid solution and here it reacts with the alkaline
compound producing carbonate (CO3--) and bicarbonate ions (HCO3-) (chemical absorption) (Corti
et al., 2001) (Corti, 2004) (Baciocchi et al., 2006). The alkaline reactants that can be used in the
absorption process can be KOH; Na2CO3; NaOH; etc.. Using KOH or NaOH, the main chemical
absorption reactions which take place in the absorption step are, respectively (1) and (2):

2 KOH + CO2
K2CO3 + H2O (1)

2 NaOH + CO2
Na2CO3 + H2O (2)

The load solution – i.e. the solution containing the carbonate/bicarbonate ions – can be regenerated
chemically by adding an alkaline hydroxide, such as calcium or magnesium hydroxide
(Ca/Mg(OH)2). In this step, poorly soluble alkaline carbonates (Ca/MgCO3) formation takes place,
which is due to the presence of Ca/Mg ions in solution. In this way, a solid compound is obtained
that is both chemically and environmentally inert, where the carbon dioxide captured in the
absorption step is safely and permanently stored, according to the example reactions (3) and (4):
Ca(OH)2 + K2CO3
CaCO3 (↓)+ 2KOH (3)
or
Ca(OH)2 + Na2CO3
CaCO3 (↓)+ 2NaOH (4)

Since the use of raw calcium hydroxide for such a process would not make any sense from a carbon
dioxide mitigation perspective, as it is manufactured by calcination of limestone releasing carbon
dioxide into the atmosphere, in order to obtain a net reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, in this
project industrial waste residues were chosen as alternative alkalinity sources. Several studies have
shown the feasibility of using different types of industrial residues, characterized by a high content
of calcium hydroxide phases, such as BA and APC from waste incineration, steel slag, etc., to
sequester CO2 and improve the leaching behaviour of the residues (Costa et al., 2007) (Baciocchi et
al, 2008). From preliminary investigations, the residues that showed the highest KOH regeneration
capacity, due to their chemical, physical and mineralogical composition were APC residues.
Figure 1 shows the schematic layout for the AwR process.

Figure 1. Schematic layout of the AwR process.

The operating conditions of the absorption step are crucial to reach the adequate composition for the
upgraded biogas, i.e. biomethane. In particular, in this work it was chosen as reference the German
National Standard (Persson et al., 2006), in particular concerning the value of the Wobbe Index1
(Higher Wobbe Index HWI=46,1÷56,5 MJ/Nm3, that corresponds to volumetric concentration of
CH4>97,5%. Details about the preliminary absorption tests are reported in another paper (Lombardi
et al., 2011).
Concerning the regeneration step, accurate laboratory experiments were carried out to investigate
the capability of APC to regenerate the carbonate/bicarbonate ions load solution and to define the
operating conditions able to maximise the regeneration (Baciocchi et al., 2010) (Baciocchi et al.,
2011).
One of the main indications that came out from such laboratory experiments was a limiting factor

1
Calorific value
Wobbe index =
density
for the alkali concentration in the absorbing solution. As a matter of fact at increasing
concentration, the yield of regeneration decreases for the combination of two negative effects:
decrease in the chemical regeneration and increase in the solution losses in the solid separation
process after regeneration. It was concluded that a maximum of 4 eq./litre of carbonates in the
solution to be regenerated is acceptable (Baciocchi et al., 2010). Hence, a maximum of 4 eq./litre of
alkali in the absorbing solution is acceptable, as well.
The operating conditions that allowed to maximize the regeneration of KOH for the absorption step
and to store significant amounts of CO2 in the solid residues include (Baciocchi et al., 2010): the
adoption of the washing pre-treatment of the ash to remove soluble salts; the selection of a mol
Ca/mol K2CO3 ratio higher than 1; the choice of a reaction temperature of 55 °C in order to enhance
reaction kinetics.
A pilot plant to tests the AwR process was set up, located at the Podere Rota landfill (Tuscany,
Italy). To the existing absorption column, the regeneration reactor was added and some tests were
carried out. The already available absortion column (Figure 2i) was designed with the aim of
processing about 20 Nm3/h of biogas with about 60 l/h of high concentrated KOH (up to 48-50%
w/w) solution (Lombardi et al., 2008a) (Lombardi et al., 2008b). If the alkali concentration must be
kept lower that 4 eq./litre (which means about 18-19% w/w KOH or NaOH) and the mass flow rate
of the solution cannot be increased over 60 l/h, it is evident that the biomethane standard cannot be
reached with the existing absorption column. For this reason the possibility of working with low
alkali concentration and three consecutive absorption stages was assumed, in order to obtain at the
exit of the third stage the required biomethane quality.
In particular, with reference to a flow rate of 20 Nm3/h of entering biogas, with a composition of
50% vol. CH4 and 50% vol. CO2, some preliminary simulations leaded to the conclusion that three
absorption stages with 60 litres/h of solution with concentration of 2,8-3,1 eq./litre – equivalent to
14-11% w/w for KOH and NaOH respectively - are required to obtain the assumed biomethane
quality (CH4 vol. concentration 97,5).
Tests of the first stage absorption step were carried out using the existing absorption column and the
produced load solution was regenerated in the regeneration reactor (Figure 2ii).

(e
)
(c
(a )
) (f
(a ( ) (
) b) d)

(
(i) b) (ii)
Figure 2. Pictures of the pilot plant: i) absorption column; ii) regeneration reactor and its main components: a)
regeneration reactor with mixer and heating jacket, b) bottom section of the reactor with filter tensioning
system, c) vacuum filtration pump, d) liquid collection tank, e) control panel and f) steel frame.

From the preliminary analyses, it appears that, applying the selected operating conditions, about
200 g CO2/kg residues could be permanently stored as calcite and around 65-70% of the KOH
solution could be regenerated for the absorption step (Baciocchi et al., 2010).

2.2 BABIU process

The second proposed method – BABIU - is based on chemical reaction of carbon dioxide directly
with BA (Mostbauer and Lenz, 2007) (Mostbauer et al., 2008). In this kind of process the gas
containing the carbon dioxide and the solid residues come directly into contact, in an appropriate
gas/solid reactor, with the result of an accelerated carbonation of the solid residues and carbon
dioxide up-take.
BABIU process uses Municipal Solid Waste Incineration (MSWI) BA (bottom ash quenched in
water at the incineration plant) at atmospheric pressure. Basic steps of the process are:
-Storage/natural weathering of quenched BA (or BA fractions) for one to three weeks
-Filling a static tank (“carbonation tank”) with the weathered BA
-Flushing with N2 to remove air/O2
-Reaction of biogas with the BA, whereupon H2S and CO2 are fixed, CaCO3 is formed and CH4 is
enriched in the product gas
-Removal of the treated bottom ash (with lower leachability) from the carbonation tank.

Laboratory pilot scale experiments for the BABIU process were conducted within the project
UPGAS-LOWCO2 in June of 2010. The ability of bottom ash samples from Italy to remove CO2
and H2S from landfill gas has been investigated at the Institute of Waste Management, BOKU
University, Vienna. (Olivieri et al., 2011). The CO2 fixation capacity of the bottom ash from Italy
was 10,5 to 11,3 kgCO2/tBA, which is rather low compared to bottom ash from Germany and
Austria, where values up to 39 kgCO2/tBA have been observed previously (Mostbauer et al., 2008).
A pilot plant to tests the BABIU process was constructed in 2011 at the Podere Rota landfill
(Tuscany, Italy) (Figures 3). The pilo plant is fed with gas from the landfill and is able to process
about 2 Nm3/h using about 1 ton of BA. The explosion-protected equipment was set up outdoor
under roof to facilitate filling and discharge of bottom ash.

Figure 3. BABIU pilot plant.

Some tests were performed filling the reactors with conventionally quenched bottom ash from grate
firing, directly from the bunker of a nearby incineration plant. CO2 entering with biogas is suddenly
removed and the process goes on until the BA binding capacity is exhausted. Typically CO2
breakthrough is observed after 5,5-6 hours. The CO2 uptake of the bottom ash was about 12-14
kgCO2/tBA.
The process is effective also in removing completely the H2S from biogas. H2S entering
concentrations are about 80-120 ppm. The H2S removing capacity of BA is higher than the CO2
binding capacity. As a matter of fact no breakthrough of H2S was observed in the test runs.
3. PRELIMINARY SIZING

A preliminary evaluation of the required amounts of APC or BA for industrial size up-grading
plants was carried out, on the basis of the previously reported results. For the calculation it was
assumed that the entering biogas composition is 50% in vol. CH4 and 50% in vol. CO2. The up-
grading process (absorption, in case of AwR, or direct BA adsorption, in case of BABIU) is able to
remove 97,5% of CO2, with 1% losses of CH4. According to these assumptions the obtained CH4
purity should be 97,5% CH4, in agreement with the previously considered German standards.
About 0,96 kg of CO2 per each Nm3 of biogas must be removed and stored in the carbonated final
materials. Table 2 reports the rough calculation of the specific requirement of APC or BA for
processing one Nm3 of biogas. Table 3 shows the amount of required material, APC or BA for, for
different size up-grading plants, assuming the up-take capacities previously reported for the two
processes. It also reports the consumption range of alternatively KOH or NaOH, for the AwR
process, considering for both the 65-70% regeneration efficiency. For the annual consumption,
7.200 hours of operation were assumed.
The different up-take capacities imply very large differences in the projected annual requirements
for the two different types of residues, that may be quite difficult to be found in cases of large up-
grading plants. So, the proposed processes seem technically applicable for medium size plants, with
entering biogas flow rate lower than 500 Nm3/h. In case of BABIU, alternative uses, requiring
smaller amounts, seems to be even more opportune (Olivieri et al., 2011).

Table 2. Specific requirement of APC and BA for processing 1 Nm3 of biogas.

Process Up-take Specific consumption
AwR 0,2 kgCO2/kgAPC 5 kgAPC/Nm3
BABIU 0,01 kgCO2/kgBA 96 kgBA/Nm3
Table 3. Consumptions for different up-grading plant sizes. AwR process: APC and KOH – or NaOH. BABIU
process: consumption of BA.
Plant size - entering biogas [Nm3/h] 100 200 500 1.000 1.500
Produced biomethane [Nm3/h] 51 102 254 508 761
AwR – KOH consumption [kg/h] 38-44 76-88 189-221 378-441 567-662
AwR – NaOH consumption [kg/h] 30-35 59-69 149-173 297-347 446-520
AwR – APC consumption [kg/h] 478 957 2.392 4.785 7.177
AwR - APC consumption [t/a] 3.445 6.890 17.226 34.452 51.678
BABIU - BA consumption [kg/h] 9.570 19.140 47.850 95.699 143.549
BABIU – BA consumption [t/a] 68.903 137.807 344.517 689.034 1.033.550

4. EVALUATIONS OF THE PROCESSES

The two processes are under complete evaluation for the environmental and economic point of
view. Some preliminary elements are reported in the following.

4.1 Environmental assessment

The environmental analysis is carried out basing on Life Cycle Assessment approach. A
preliminary study of the amount of greenhouse gases created and saved by using the proposed
processes is already available, comparing the innovative methods to conventional up-grading
technologies (Starr et al., 2011) (Starr at al., 2012). The assumed functional unit for the study is 1
kWh of biomethane upgraded from biogas which is composed of 50% CH4 and 50% CO2. Results
show that all the considered up-grading technologies allow for CO2 saving. Nevertheless, the
BABIU and AwR proposed processes – thanks to the CO2 capture - allow for higher saving
(respectively – 1.977 and -1.794 gCO2/kWh of produced biomethane) than the others (-1.489 to -
1.790 gCO2/kWh of produced biomethane). However, environmental perfomances of the two the
processes are quite sensitive to some parameters. For example, in reference to AwR, using NaOH is
better than using KOH and the CO2 saving is very sensitive to regeneration efficiency. Such
information are used to improve the AwR process. Concerning BABIU, being the required amount
of BA very high, the impact of transport distance is very important and may become higher than
any CO2 savings and the process may have a negative impact on the environment.

4.2 Economic assessment

A technical and economical assessment of the process demonstrated by means of pilot plants is
under development, in reference to hypothetical full scale applications.
The technical assessment is aimed to define a complete layout of plants on full scale (Figure 4-
Figure 5), accompanied by the sizing of the full process components, the consumption of input
materials, the consumption of water, the reactant make up, the consumption of energy for driving
equipment, the production of up-graded gas, the production of valuable by-products, the production
of scraps.
On the basis of the results of the technical assessment it will be possible to perform an economical
assessment. First of all the investment cost for the equipment and its installation will be calculated.
The maintenance and operating costs will be evaluated. The yearly economic balance will be
performed and a specific up-grading cost – per unit of gas processed – will be calculated. The
specific up-grading costs will be compared with specific up-grading cost for conventional methods.
Different plant sizes and different biogas qualities will be considered. This will supply indication
about the type/size of equipment that will be required in the different situations and about the costs
of the process in reference to the different situations. In this way it will be possible to highlight in
which cases the proposed process are more economically sustainable also in comparison with
conventional methods. The economical assessment of the proposed processes will be compared also
with the conventional layout of biogas exploitation (i.e. direct use in reciprocating engines) to
understand if the proposed process to up-grade the gas and use it away from the production site is
comparable/better/worse – from an economic point of view – with the conventional one.

Figure 4. AwR layout.

 Figure 5. BABIU layout.

5. CONCLUSIONS

Two innovative up-grading processes were proposed, investigated and preliminarily assessed in the
frame of the UPGAS-LOWCO2 project.
The main innovative point of the two proposed methods is to associate to the CO2 removal also its
capture (that is not performed in the conventional up-grading methods, which use to release the
removed CO2 to the atmosphere), in order to contribute to a negative balance of the atmospheric
CO2. In order to achieve this goal, two innovative processes were proposed and studied in the.
Both the proposed processes have the common feature, which is the use of industrial residues for
the carbon dioxide capture and storage process, in order to keep the lowest possible the operating
costs. The industrial residues that are considered are bottom ash (BA) and Air Pollution Control
residues (APC) from Waste-to-Energy plants.
The first method - Alkali with Regeneration (AwR) - is based on CO2 chemical absorption by
means of an alkali aqueous solution associated to load solution regeneration using APC.
The second method - BABIU (Bottom Ash BIogas Upgrading) - is based on direct CO2 adsorption
on BA, by means of gas/solid direct contact process.
From preliminary analysis the CO2 up-take capacity of the solid residues used in the two diverse
ways, resulted quite different, being about 0,2 kgCO2/kgAPC for the AwR process and 0,01
kgCO2/kgBA for the BABIU process. The different values imply very large difference in projected
annual requirements for the two different types of residues, that may be quite difficult to be found
in cases of large up-grading plants. So, the proposed processes seem technically applicable for
medium size plants, with entering biogas flow rate lower than 500 Nm3/h. In case of BABIU,
alternative uses, requiring smaller amounts, seems to be even more opportune. Interesting
application of BABIU may be: upgrading of lean landfill gas (landfill gas low in methane, for
example < 35% CH4) to prolong the use of conventional gas utilization in reciprocating engines,
micro-turbines etc; protection of utilization units (especially: reciprocating engines) from H2S
corrosion by elimination of H2S from biogas or landfill gas; upgrading of “normal” landfill gas (not
lean landfill gas) to generate a medium-calorific gas such gas is distributed.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Authors wish to thank European Commission and the LIFE+ Programme for cofunding the
UPGAS-LOWCO2 project.
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Persson M., Jönsson O. and Wellinger A. (2006). Biogas Upgrading to Vehicle Fuel Standards and
Grid Injection. IEA Bioenergy
Starr K., Gabarrell Durany X., Villalba Mendez G., Talens Peiro L., Lombardi L. (2011). CO2
balance of biogas upgrading technologies. Sardinia 2011, 13th International Waste Management
and Landfill Symposium.
Starr K., Gabarrell Durany X., Villalba Mendez G., Talens Peiro L., Lombardi L., Biogas
Upgrading: Environmental Comparison of Conventional and Innovative Technologies. Accepted
for presentation at ECOS 2012 - International Conference on Efficiency, Cost, Optimization,
Simulation and Environmental Impact of Energy Systems. Perugia, Italy. June 26, 2012 – June 29,
2012
Starr K., Gabarrell Durany X., Villalba Mendez G., Talens Peiró L., Lombardi L.. Life cycle
assessment of biogas upgrading technologies. Waste Management 32 (2012) 991–999.