Biofuels

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Biogas-based fuels as renewable energy in the

transport sector: an overview of the potential of
using CBG, LBG and other vehicle fuels produced
from biogas

Sofia Dahlgren

To cite this article: Sofia Dahlgren (2022) Biogas-based fuels as renewable energy in the
transport sector: an overview of the potential of using CBG, LBG and other vehicle fuels
produced from biogas, Biofuels, 13:5, 587-599, DOI: 10.1080/17597269.2020.1821571

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BIOFUELS
2022, VOL. 13, NO. 5, 587–599
https://doi.org/10.1080/17597269.2020.1821571

Biogas-based fuels as renewable energy in the transport sector: an overview

of the potential of using CBG, LBG and other vehicle fuels produced
from biogas
Sofia Dahlgren
Environmental Technology and Management, Department of Management and Engineering, Link€oping University, Link€oping, Sweden

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

The energy supply in the world needs to change from fossil fuels to renewable alternatives. Biogas Received 7 May 2020
is such a renewable alternative, and there is potential to increase the biogas production in the Accepted 5 September 2020
world. In recent decades, many countries have increasingly been upgrading biogas to vehicle fuel.
KEYWORDS
In the last few years, the interest has also increased in liquefying biogas for heavier transports.
Biogas; transport; biogas-
Biogas can also be a raw material for other fuels by gasifying the biogas, for example Fischer- based fuels; compressed
Tropsch fuels, methanol, dimethyl ether and hydrogen. This study provides an overview of vehicle biomethane; lique-
fuels that can be produced from biogas, their technological maturity and their respective poten- fied biomethane
tials as substitutes for fossil fuels in the transport system. A common factor for all of them is that
they are most often produced from fossil fuels. Compressed and liquefied methane are the only
fuels being commercially produced using biogas. The other fuels all have strengths that both com-
pressed and liquefied methane lack, for example the possibility of emission-free fuel cell vehicles.
However, they are all less mature technologies than compressed and liquefied methane. The great-
est short-term potential is thus for expanded use of biogas as compressed and lique-
fied biomethane.

Abbreviations: CBG: compressed biomethane, compressed biogas, renewable natural gas, CBM,
bio-CNG, RNG; CNG: compressed natural gas; DME: dimethyl ether; FT diesel: diesel produced via
the Fischer-Tropsch process; FT fuels: fuels via the Fischer-Tropsch process; LBG: liquefied biome-
thane, liquefied biogas, liquefied renewable natural gas, LBM, bio-LNG; LNG: liquefied natural gas;
NGVs: natural gas vehicles, vehicles compatible with methane

Introduction reduced use of mineral fertilizers [5,6]. Many different bio-

Over 80% of the energy supply in the world in 2017 came
from fossil sources [1]. To avoid undesirable global warm-
ing, this current fossil regime must be transformed into
one that is based on renewable energy. However, in con-
trast to fossil fuels, there is not yet any easy way to pro-
duce huge amounts of storable and easily utilizable
renewable fuels from a single source. In 2018, less than
20% of the energy used in the European Union (EU) came
from renewable sources, and a variety of different raw
materials and energy carriers had to be used to achieve
even that limited share [2]. A system of different raw mate-
rials and energy solutions that work together to solve the
problem must thus be developed to achieve a global,
large-scale transition to renewable energy.
Biogas, which is a methane and carbon dioxide mix pro-
duced by anaerobic digestion of biomass, is one alternative
that could be a part of this system. Biogas is especially
interesting as an alternative fuel since it is not only a
renewable fuel, but because biogas production also can
help solve other societal problems – mostly by improving
waste treatment, but also through positive secondary
effects like improvement of soil structures [3,4] and
mass sources can be used to produce renewable methane,
and all countries have at least some potential to produce
biogas, but only 0.2% of the total primary world energy
supply came from biogas during 2014 [7]. However, the
biogas potential in the world from just waste (i.e. urban
waste, agro-industry and sewage sludge) has been esti-
mated to around 3% of the fossil fuel use in 2017 [1, com-
bined with 8].
In most countries, biogas is primarily used for producing
electricity and heat. However, biogas can also be used for
other purposes, such as for producing vehicle fuels. Biogas
is in many countries increasingly being upgraded to com-
pressed biomethane (CBG), as a renewable version of com-
pressed natural gas (CNG) for use in especially cars and
buses. During the last few years, there has been an
increased interest in liquefied biomethane (LBG) for use in
heavier transports instead of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
There are also other options available. Apart from CBG and
LBG, biogas can also be used to produce syngas, which in
turn can be used to produce renewable versions of fuels
such as hydrogen, methanol or DME. These fuels have dif-
ferent characteristics and potentials than CBG and LBG,
which might make them suitable for other parts of the

CONTACT Sofia Dahlgren sofia.dahlgren@liu.se Environmental Technology and Management, Department of Management and Engineering,
Link€oping University, SE-581 83 Link€oping, Link€
oping, Sweden
ß 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-
nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or
built upon in any way.
588 S. DAHLGREN
renewable energy system that needs to be developed.
However, like compressed and liquefied methane, they are
currently all produced from primarily fossil fuels.
The purpose of this study is to contribute with an over-
view and an increased understanding of fuels that can be
produced from biogas and their potential to be used as a
substitution for fossil energy in the transport sector. The
study answers the following research questions:
 For what purpose have the different fuels
been developed?
 What strengths and weaknesses do these fuels have?
 How far have the fuels come in their development,
and how are they produced and used today?
Method
A literature inventory was made to be able to identify
what possible fuels can be produced from biogas and their
potentials. This inventory was wide and included both aca-
demic literature and grey literature, newspaper articles and
reports from companies based on previously found news-
paper articles, depending on where information could be
found. In some cases, especially with the alternative fuels
that are less mature and used, information is scarce and
hard to access. Some journal articles, such as one by
Ahmadi Moghaddam et al. [9], had previously studied
either one or several of the possible biogas-based fuels.
Such overview articles were used to create an overview of
the alternatives and their strengths and weaknesses.
Journal articles were also used to show the historical con-
text of the fuels [10–14] and what the current research is
focused on e.g. [12,15–17]. Grey literature, such as govern-
mental or organizational reports, e.g. [18,19], were valuable
sources for statistics on the different fuels and applications
as well as on new or planned developments. Newspaper
articles were used to find information on recent develop-
ments, such as decisions to build new production sites.
This information were then corroborated by the company’s
annual report or their homepage, e.g. [20,21].
The author also had continuous access to a biogas-
related network of people, companies and authorities,
through a competence center for biogas based at
Linko€ping University. The findings were presented and dis-
cussed several times within this network.
A bibliometric search for each fuel was conducted to
complement the inventory. This was done to get an indica-
tion of how the interest in the fuels developed throughout
the years. The bibliometric search was performed using the
Scopus database, and the search looked in the titles, key-
words and abstracts for the terms presented in Table 1.
Several of the fuels, for example hydrogen, are common in
chemical production and the distinction of adding the
word ‘fuel’ to the search terms was considered needed.
However, it was assumed that there was no need to add
the word ‘fuel’ to the search terms when doing the biblio-
metric search of CBG and LBG since methane gas used for
other purposes is not usually compressed or liquefied. In
most cases, the figures produced from the bibliometric
search were cut off around the year 2000, since after then,
the number of hits rapidly increased for all search terms,
which made it hard to distinguish the earlier interest.
Fuels produced from biogas
Biogas can, via different processes, be used to produce sev-
eral different transportation fuels, where CBG, LBG, hydro-
gen, methanol, dimethyl ether and Fischer-Tropsch (FT)
fuels are the most likely options. This section gives a short
introduction to how these six fuels are produced by using
biogas as raw material.
Raw biogas contains mostly methane gas and carbon
dioxide, usually around 50–70% and 30–50%, respectively.
There are a couple of different main processes in which
this raw biogas can be used in the transportation system:
combusting it to produce electric power, upgrading it to a
higher methane content, gasifying it to syngas, or metha-
notrophy or partial oxidation to methanol. These processes
are shown in Figure 1, along with the subsequent fuels
that are produced.
By using a generator and a turbine when combusting
raw biogas, electricity and heat can be produced. The elec-
tricity can be used in the common power system and thus
be used for charging electric vehicles [22]. Electricity can
also be converted to hydrogen via electrolysis, and the
hydrogen can be used in fuel cell vehicles [23].
Raw biogas can also be upgraded to a higher purity –
biomethane, with a methane content of at least 97%. The
three most common methods to achieve this purity are
water scrubbing, pressure swing adsorption and chemical
(amine) absorption [17]. The methods differ in, for example,
how much methane losses there are, how pure the end
product/s is/are, how much energy was used in the
upgrading and if it required any chemicals or special
equipment [17,24]. Biomethane produced from upgrading
can be used directly as fuel in two ways – either by com-
pressing it to 200 bar (compressed biogas, CBG) or by cool-
ing it down to a liquid at 162  C (liquefied biogas, LBG).
To liquefy biomethane, an extra polishing step is often
needed where the biomethane is purified even further.
Gustafsson et al. [24] compared different upgrading meth-
ods for CBG and LBG as well as ways to distribute the gas,
and found that LBG requires more energy than CBG (0.03-
0.04 kWh/MJ LBG instead of 0.02-0.03 kWh/MJ CBG), but
LBG often seems to have less global warming impact than
CBG due to reduced methane slip [24].
Apart from using the biomethane directly as fuel, it can
also be used to produce other fuels via gasification of the
biomethane. Gasification of biomethane produces syngas, a
mix between hydrogen and carbon monoxide (CO). The
syngas can then be used to produce other fuels. By shifting
the CO, hydrogen can be produced out of the syngas. The
hydrogen in turn can produce electricity [25]. It also works
the other way around – producing hydrogen via using
electricity and water, which can then be shifted to syngas.
The syngas can also be used in fuel synthesis to produce
methanol, which in turn can be used to produce dimethyl
ether (DME) [25]. DME can also be produced directly from
syngas [26], but the majority of the DME production exist-
ing today uses methanol as feedstock. Syngas can also be
used in a Fischer Tropsch (FT) synthesis to create Fischer
Tropsch fuels, such as synthetic diesel.
It is also possible to produce methanol directly from
biogas via methanotrophy or partial oxidation [17].

Table 1. The search terms used for the bibliometric search.
Fuel
Compressed biomethane (CBG)
Liquefied biomethane (LBG)
Hydrogen
Methanol
Dimetyl ether (DME)
Fischer-Tropsch fuels (FT-fuels)
Figure 1. Biogas can be used to produce several possible fuels, either by upgrading it to a higher methane content, by combusting it to produce electric
power, by gasifying it to syngas or by methanotrophy or partial oxidation.
Biogas-based fuels
Although CBG, LBG, hydrogen, methanol, DME and FT fuels
can all be produced from the same resource – biogas –
they are all different in their strengths, weaknesses and
maturity. This section presents, for each fuel, their respect-
ive backgrounds, why they were developed, their strengths
and weaknesses and how far they have come in their
development.
CBG
CBG is a gaseous fuel that consists of at least 97% methane
and is compressed to around 200 bar. It is interchangeable
with compressed natural gas (CNG) – methane gas pro-
duced from fossil natural gas instead of renewable biogas
– which has been used as a transportation fuel since at
least the 1930s [13,14]. However, the first spiked interest in
CNG came in the 1970s due to the two oil crises [12]. From
around 1955 and onward, cheap oil and petroleum were
abundant, but these two oil crises made countries look for
domestic energy resources and how these could be trans-
formed into fuel for decreasing their import-dependency.
One of these resources was natural gas and its subsequent
use as CNG, which gained a particular interest in, for
example, Canada, Brazil, Argentina and New Zeeland [13].
The vehicles that existed at that time were conversions of
gasoline or diesel vehicles. In 1986, after seven years with a
CNG program in New Zeeland, over 10% of all cars there
were NGVs – over 100,000 vehicles [13]. However, the mar-
ket in New Zeeland collapsed soon afterward due to
rescinded policies [14].
BIOFUELS 589
Search terms
compressed AND "natural gas" OR biogas OR biomethane
liquefied AND "natural gas" OR biogas OR biomethane
hydrogen AND fuel
methanol AND fuel
‘dimethyl ether’ AND fuel
‘Fischer Tropsch’ AND fuel
Later, in the 1980s and 1990s, the interest in CNG
increased (Figure 2). Local air pollution was a hot issue,
and due to lower emissions of air pollutants, natural gas
vehicles were viewed as a preferable option. Furthermore,
natural gas vehicles emit less particulate matter than petrol
and diesel vehicles, and their emissions have a lower tropo-
spheric ozone formation potential [27]. Several countries
had a growth of NGVs in the 1990s due to the combination
of reduced air pollution and increased energy independ-
ence; Argentina, Brazil and China are some examples [14].
During these first decades of increased CNG interest,
there was also some focus on using biogas rather than nat-
ural gas. In some places, biogas was already being pro-
duced as a by-product from treatment of waste, such as
wastewater sludge, manure and plant wastes [10,11,28–30].
In other places, there were interest in starting biogas pro-
duction from those substrates [30] or substrates like
organic waste [28] and algae [30]. Interest in collecting
methane from landfills also developed [30]. The use of bio-
gas was at this time seldom connected to transport fuels.
Instead, raw biogas was used as fuel for heating [28,30],
electricity production [29] or cooking [10,11]. However,
there was some focus on raw biogas or CBG as transport
fuel [28,31–34].
Finally, a third benefit was added when global warming
became a hot topic. The possibility in using biogas, which
reduces the emissions of greenhouse gases compared to
fossil fuels, increased the interest in biogas, e.g. [32,35].
Today, the research on CBG often focuses on available
upgrading technologies and their comparative perform-
ance, e.g. [16,24,36–38] and exhaust emissions from gas
vehicles, e.g. [15,39]. There are also studies on local
590 S. DAHLGREN
Figure 2. A bibliometric search of journal articles and books indicates an
increased interest since the 1970s.
potentials of biogas, e.g. [40,41]. Khan et al. [12] reviewed
how CNG can be used as a transportation fuel. An add-
itional research focus is the technological, economic and
environmental aspects for producing compressed methane
from electricity, e.g. [42–44].
In 2019, there were over 27 million NGVs in the world,
with over 32,000 refilling stations [45]. China, Iran, India,
Pakistan, Argentina, Brazil and Italy all had more than
1,000,000 NGVs each [45]. Several large auto manufacturers,
such as Audi, Fiat, Ford, Iveco, Opel, Seat, Skoda, Suzuki
and Volkswagen, have at least one car model that can use
CBG [46]. The models are a mix for different purposes, like
small city cars, executive coupe cars, SUVs, light commer-
cial vans and trucks [46]. However, compressed methane is
a gas fuel and requires large volumes to transport, and
CNG/CBG is thus more appropriate for smaller sized
vehicles than heavy duty vehicles [47]. Regarding heavy
vehicles, it has primarily been used for driving shorter dis-
tances, such as public transport and garbage removal
[47,48]. Due to its need to refuel within 500 km [48,49], it is
not considered a good alternative for heavy duty vehicles
that need to drive longer distances [47–49].
The methane gas vehicles existing today almost exclu-
sively use natural gas rather than biogas, but in some
countries, there is a trend of increased CBG production.
One of those countries is Sweden, where CBG has been
used since the 1990s and where 60% (1.3 TWh) of the bio-
gas produced was upgraded to CBG in 2018 [18]. Denmark,
which has earlier focused on biogas for power and heat,
was expected to have a 50% upgrading of the biogas pro-
duced in 2018, a dramatic increase from the non-existing
upgrading in 2012 [50]. Other examples of countries with
rapid growth of biomethane production during the last
decade are France [51, combined with 52], Finland [53] and
Switzerland [54, combined with 55].
LBG
A major problem with compressed methane is that it
requires a large space to store the energy. However, if the
methane is liquefied – by cooling it to 162 C – the
needed storage space will be much smaller. Liquefied nat-
ural gas has been used as a way to transport natural gas
since the 1960s [56], but in the 2000s, the interest grew
dramatically, as indicated by Figure 3, and in the 2010s,
commercial use in vehicles began.
Today, LBG research mainly focuses on upgrading and
liquefication technologies [24,57–59]. There are also studies
Figure 3. A bibliometric search of journal articles and books indicates that
there has been an interest in LNG since the 1960s – especially during the
1970s and 1980s – but that the real growth of interest started in the 2000s.
on the feasibility of using LBG as a road transportation fuel
[60, 61], as well as a marine transportation fuel [62,63].
There are also ongoing studies on the possibility of using
the cold energy in liquefied methane, e.g. [64–67].
LNG requires less volume than CNG for storing the same
amount of energy (1 liter LNG instead of 2.4 liter CNG),
which makes it a better choice for heavy duty transport
[48]. During 2017, there were around 150,000 LNG heavy
trucks in use in China alone [68]. A few of the largest auto
producers, such as Volvo, Scania, Iveco [69] and Dongfeng
[70], recently started to produce heavy vehicles running on
LNG. Hagos and Ahlgren [47] found that the preliminary
results from an LNG project in Europe confirmed that LNG
was a suitable alternative for medium and long distance
trucks in Europe. However, the economic viability of LNG
use in heavy trucks is often dependent upon the price of
the fuel, since the vehicle itself is more expensive to buy
than a diesel truck [48].
A difficulty for using LNG for heavy transport is that the
refueling infrastructure is still limited [49]. In 2017, there
were only 100 refueling stations for LNG in Europe [71].
However, one company is planning to have built 50 more
refueling stations by 2020 in the Nordic countries [20].
Apart from being used in heavy road vehicles, LNG is
also of increasing interest to the shipping industry due to
air pollution regulations [72]. In 2017, there were 100 ships
worldwide fueled by LNG, but over 100 new ships were
confirmed to be built [71]. In 2016, 85% of the LNG ships
(excluding LNG tankers) were active in Norway, and the
majority of them were either car-/passenger ferries or plat-
form supply vessels [73]. The ships that were being built in
2016 had more diverse purposes – everything from con-
tainer ships to cruises [73]. However, an LNG cistern has to
be 3-4 times bigger than a cistern for common marine oils
[74], and thus it is difficult to retrofit old ships to use LNG.
Like compressed methane, liquefied methane is almost
exclusively produced from natural gas rather than biogas.
There were only seven active LBG plants in the world in
2017: one in Sweden, one in Norway, one in the
Netherlands, two in the United Kingdom and two in the
United States [75]. Since then, several more have been built
or have been started to be built, for example in Sweden
[19,21,76], Norway [21, 77], the United Kingdom [78], and
the Netherlands/Belgium [79]. The LBG is used for heavy
road vehicles, ships and for industrial usage in manufactur-
ing [19,21,76,79].

Figure 4. A bibliometric search of journal articles and books indicates that
there has been an increased interest in hydrogen since the 1960s, which
gained speed after 1973.
Hydrogen
Already in the late nineteenth century, there were ideas
about replacing fossil-based combustion engines with a
more efficient and pollution-free alternative [80]. The alter-
native in question was hydrogen fuel cells, which has the
advantage to produce power without combustion – and
thus can be used without any local air pollution from the
motor. Hydrogen was first produced from electricity and
water in the 1800s, and almost 40 years later, the first
hydrogen fuel cell was created [80]. However, the tech-
nique was still extremely immature, and it would take
almost 100 more years until the first hydrogen/oxygen fuel
cell for practical use was created [80]. The interest in
hydrogen started to increase in the 1960s (Figure 4), and
the first idea of a hydrogen economy was published a year
before the oil crisis in 1973 [81]. The idea was to use
hydrogen produced from, for example, solar power and
nuclear power for transportation, storage and fuel [82].
Hydrogen vehicles had the advantages of no tailpipe emis-
sions and providing a possibility to store and transport fuel
directly produced from electricity. The added benefit of
this being possible by using renewable sources and not
affecting the climate has increased the interest in hydro-
gen, and in 2007, the first mass production of fuel cell cars
began [80].
Today, the research on biogas-based hydrogen focuses
mainly on different technologies that can produce hydro-
gen from biogas, e.g. [83–89]. A common research theme
for hydrogen is otherwise different techniques for produc-
ing hydrogen from water and sunlight, e.g. [90–93]. Other
important focus areas include fuel cells, e.g. [94–96] and
hydrogen storage, e.g. [97–99].
In 2018, there were around 13,000 fuel cell vehicles
worldwide, and many auto manufacturers are working on
developing hydrogen cars, buses, trucks, etc. [100]. Some
of them, e.g. Toyota and Hyundai, have already managed
to create commercial models [100]. However, the purchase
price of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is currently high in
comparison to other alternatives [23,101]. The interest in
fuel cell vehicles is most pronounced in China, Japan and
South Korea. The three countries respectively have targets
of 1 million, 800,000 and 630,000 fuel cell vehicles by 2030
[102]. However, there is also an interest in other countries
like US (especially California), Norway, Germany and
France [100].
BIOFUELS 591
Figure 5. A bibliometric search of journal articles and books indicates that
there has been an increased interest in methanol since the first oil crisis
in 1973.
Over 400 billion m3 of hydrogen are used worldwide
today [83], although not necessarily as transport fuel.
Instead, almost all hydrogen is used for various industrial
purposes, for example, within chemical industries. However,
like all the other potential fuels, the hydrogen used today
is most commonly produced from fossil sources, especially
natural gas [83,102]. The hydrogen that is produced using
renewable sources often uses electricity and water. In
Norway, a test project that used biogas to produce hydro-
gen has been carried out [103] and there are also other
examples of companies and countries working with hydro-
gen from biogas [104,105].
Methanol
Methanol is another fuel that reaped benefits from the oil
crises in the 1970s, that increased the interest in many
alternative fuels (Figure 5). Methanol vehicles already
existed in small numbers since at least the 1930s [106], but
there was no sizable spiked interest until the oil crisis
made countries aware of their vulnerability in being
import-dependent. Several countries launched programs
experimenting with methanol as a fuel, with large fleet tri-
als in the 1980s and 1990s [107].
Today, a common theme in the research on renewable
methanol is how it can be produced, either from biogas or
from other renewable sources, e.g. [108–113]. There have
also been studies on the use of methanol from renewable
sources in shipping [63,114] and in light-duty vehicles
[115,116]. Regarding the current research on methanol in
general, there are also several studies done on methanol
fuel cells, e.g. [109,117–119].
The largest user of methanol in vehicles today is China,
with methanol being used both as different blends with
gasoline and as a pure M100 fuel [107]. There have been
pilot programs in China with methanol vehicles where
many million kilometers have been driven [120]. A few
other countries, such as Israel and Australia, use methanol
to blend with gasoline [107]. Methanol can also be used in
fuel cells [120,121], for example as range extenders [122],
or as methanol fuel cell powered trucks, vans and cars
[120]. In the EU, methanol is allowed in gasoline at low
blends up to 3% [123].
Methanol is also a possible ship fuel [120,121], but it is
not used to the same degree as LNG. A difference between
these two fuels is that, in contrast to LNG, methanol can
be used more easily in retrofitted ships [124]. In 2018, there
592 S. DAHLGREN
Figure 6. A bibliometric search of journal articles and books indicates that
there has been an increased interest in DME since the end of the 1990s.
were eight ships in use (one roll-on/roll-off passenger ves-
sel and seven tankers), and there were at least four more
ships planned for 2019 [120].
Around 400 TWh methanol is produced each year, but
large parts of the production are used in the petrochemical
industry [107]. Like all the other potential fuels, the metha-
nol used today is most commonly produced from fossil
sources, especially natural gas and coal [121]. Only one
methanol plant could be found that uses biogas as a
resource to produce the methanol – in the Netherlands,
with a yearly production of above 300 GWh [120]. Apart
from that plant, there are several actors that work with
production of methanol from different kinds of renewable
sources – some with commercial plants and some that are
in research and development [120].
DME
With the growing concern with local air pollution in the
1990s, a new fuel was promoted as a lesser-polluting alter-
native to diesel – DME [26]. Compared to diesel, DME pro-
duces less NOx, carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons, and
the combustion does not produce any soot at all [26].
However, even though there has been an increased inter-
est in DME since the 1990s (Figure 6), the interest is still
low in relation to, for example, liquefied methane
or methanol.
Today, there are many studies about how DME can be
produced, either from biogas or other renewable sources,
e.g. [125–127]. In 2006, Semelsberger et al. made a thor-
ough review of DME as an alternative fuel – including
aspects like fuel properties, production and infrastructure.
Apart from this, there have also been studies about the
use of DME in compression ignition engines [128–130] and
DME in comparison with other vehicle fuels [9,131]. There
has also been at least one study about the regional devel-
opment of DME [132].
There are a few auto manufacturers that have worked
with developing heavy vehicles compatible with DME,
including AB Volvo, Isuzu Trucks, Nissan Diesel and
Shanghai Diesel Co [133]. Volvo, together with other actors,
performed a field test in Sweden with biomass-based DME
[134]. According to an interview with a representative from
Volvo, the field test in Sweden was successful but ended
due to insufficient availability of the fuel and lack of cus-
tomer interest [135].
However, like all the other potential fuels, the DME used
today is almost exclusively produced from fossil sources.
Figure 7. A bibliometric search of journal articles and books indicates that
there has been an increased interest in Fischer-Tropsch fuels in the 1980s
and from the end of the 1990s.
China is the major market for DME, but not necessarily for
transport – most of the DME is blended with LPG. DME is
also, for example, used as an aerosol propellant [136]. In
other countries where DME is used, such as India, other
purposes than transport fuel also dominate [136]. The DME
produced today is primarily from natural gas and coal
[136]. The only found plant for renewable DME was a dem-
onstration plant in Sweden, which produced biomass-based
DME from black liquor [137].
FT fuels
In 1925, the chemists Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch dis-
covered that it was possible to produce liquid hydrocar-
bons from carbon monoxide and hydrogen at certain
temperatures and with certain catalysts [138]. This Fischer
Tropsch (FT) process had the potential for creating liquid
fuels from especially the more unmanageable coal, thus
allowing the energy to be used in vehicles. The process
was continuously studied, especially in Germany, for the
next two decades, with a total production of 600 000 tons/
year as maximum, partly due to a political push for fuel
independence [139]. After World War II, the interest spread
to other parts of the world [140]. However, when large oil
fields were found in several places in the world in the
1950s, the interest waned since there were no longer any
economic incentives due to the abundance of petroleum
[140]. Since then, there has only been one large-scale pro-
duction site that has continuously been producing FT fuels
– Sasol in South Africa, which uses cheap coal as raw
material [139]. By the end of the 1970s, the interest in
Fischer-Tropsch fuels started to increase (Figure 7), most
likely due to the oil crises and the subsequently increased
interest in alternatives to petrol.
Today, there are many studies about the Fischer-
Tropsch process and the catalysts that can be used, e.g.
[141–143]. Apart from this, there have also been studies
about areas such as existing Fischer-Tropsch diesel produc-
tion in different existing plants [144], the possibility of
using the Fischer-Tropsch process to produce fuel for avi-
ation [145], Fischer-Tropsch diesel in comparison with other
vehicle fuels [9, 131] and air pollution from Fischer-Tropsch
diesel [146].
The Fischer-Tropsch process can be used to produce
several different kinds of liquid fuels. One major alternative
is synthetic diesel, as it is compatible with diesel infrastruc-
ture and vehicles. Diesel is the most common oil product,

Figure 8. The size of a typical, expected plant, based on Zinoviev et al. [25].
In the study, FT fuels, DME, methanol and hydrogen are all based on the gas-
ification of other kinds of biomass than biogas.
with an equivalent use of around 200 million tons of oil
per year in Europe alone [147]. There is diesel on the mar-
ket produced from natural gas through the Fischer-Tropsch
process, but no producer uses biogas.
Analysis and discussion
The scale of biogas production
Due to the nature of the raw material, there is a possibility
to produce biogas from domestic resources in every coun-
try in the world. This is thus an alternative for increasing
national energy security, an ambition which was important
for increasing the interest in many alternative fuels in the
1970s. However, the best raw material to use from a
resource efficiency perspective, as well as the raw material
that is certain to exist in every country, is waste streams
like wastewater treatment plants or farms with manure –
which, however, will always be limited. The raw materials
for biogas are spread out with smaller volumes over a
larger area, which will limit the scale of biogas produc-
tion plants.
This creates difficulties for some of the alternatives since
they require a certain volume to be economically feasible.
In 2015 in Sweden, CBG production was done in scales
between 0 and 108 GWh/year per plant (the mean was
17 GWh/year) [148]. LBG requires larger production plants –
a study done on different alternatives for LBG production
showed that production plants require at least 50 GWh of
yearly production to be economically feasible [149]. The
existing commercial LBG plants are also most often on that
scale, with a yearly production of 65-125 GWh [19,21,77].
There is, however, an exception with the farm-based com-
mercial LBG production in the United Kingdom that started
in 2018, which only has a yearly production of around
15 GWh of LBG [78]. The other biogas-based fuel alterna-
tives require even larger scales, according to a study made
by Zinoviev et al. [25] (Figure 8). The one plant that was
found using biogas to produce methanol is also larger
than any existing LBG plant, with a yearly production of
over 300 GWh [120]. However, research has been done on
small-scale production of liquid fuels from biogas [150].
Gasification and syngas production appear more flexible
than biomethane. Gasification can use several different bio-
mass sources – including biomass that might otherwise be
hard to produce liquid fuels from, like forest residues.
Another aspect is that the majority of the gasification facili-
ties is the same for all the different syngas fuels, and only
BIOFUELS 593
a small part is dedicated to producing the particular fuel
that is the end product. It would require an investment to
change from producing one fuel for another, but it might
still be more flexible concerning output than upgrading
to biomethane.
The limited size of biogas production and biogas pro-
duction plants also causes other concerns. If we take
Sweden as an example, which accounted for 75% of all the
biomethane used as a transport fuel in the EU during 2015
[151], the total biogas potential from waste is somewhere
around 15 TWh [152]. Cars in Sweden use 50 TWh of fuel
yearly [153], which is more than three times the production
potential. That number is not including heavy vehicles,
which in itself is also larger than the biogas production
potential from waste streams. The largest biogas plant pro-
duces around 100-120 GWh yearly, but over 90% of the
plants produce less than 20 GWh [148]. There are already a
few LNG ships bunkering in Sweden, and one of them is a
large ferry that bunkers daily in Sweden. This single ship
uses twice as much fuel than the largest biogas plant pro-
duces, and over 10% of the entire current national biogas
production [149]. Biogas thus has its limitations in how
much of the energy demand of the transport sector that
can be substituted.
Energy
The more energy that is used in the production, the less
efficient the fuel is. Upgrading the biogas to biomethane
requires cleaning of the biogas to remove carbon dioxide
and other impurities. To create vehicle fuel requires either
compressing to high pressure (200 bar) or cooling to low
temperatures (-162 C) – processes which both require rela-
tively large amounts of energy. The syngas track, on the
other hand, requires energy for the gasification and fuel
synthesis processes. Apart from the energy input, the
actual amount of fuel yielded from the production process
of the different types of biogas-based fuels will also differ.
However, the energy use in the production and the fuel
yield is not always the same in connection with the differ-
ent fuels. Instead, there are slight differences depending on
particular circumstances in each case, such as what cata-
lysts are used, process temperatures, production scales,
type of reaction used and type of technology. An example
of this is found in Ghosh et al. [108], where five potential
cases of methanol production processes were studied,
which all differed in how much methanol could be yielded
from the biogas (between 1912 and 2100 tons per day)
and how much energy the processes required. Or Zain and
Mohamed [154], who give an overview of previous studies
on methane to syngas conversion and the conversion of
CO2 to methanol, focusing on the parameters they used
and what conversion rates they got. Another example is
provided by Gustafsson et al. [24], who studied energy use
in different upgrading methods for CBG and LBG.
To compare the different biogas-based fuels with each
other, one previous study, Ahmadi Moghaddam et al. [9],
was used in particular. This study was chosen since it
looked at most of the biogas-based fuel alternatives
(hydrogen was not included). Since the data is from a sin-
gle source, the assumptions are the same, and it should
thus be easier to compare the fuel alternatives than if
594 S. DAHLGREN
Figure 9. The primary energy input from the production phase of some of
the biogas-based alternatives, based on Ahmadi Moghaddam et al. [9].
different sources were used with different assumptions.
However, this should primarily be considered as rough esti-
mations. As explained previously, in reality, there will be
differences within each type of fuel, depending on the
circumstances.
These differences in the energy needed to produce the
different fuels show that LBG has the most energy-inten-
sive production phase, while methanol and CBG have the
least energy-intensive production phases (Figure 9).
According to Ahmadi Moghaddam et al. [9] (Figure 10),
Fischer Tropsch will have a much lower fuel yield than the
other alternatives. However, apart from fuel, there will also
be steam and heat produced from FTD, methanol and
DME production.
Another aspect that will affect the outcome is the volu-
metric energy density since the fuels in many situations
will be transported on trucks or other vehicles with a cer-
tain maximum volume. The vehicles using the fuels will
also require a larger tank or have to refuel more often. This
relates to whether the fuel is a liquid or not, which is also
the reason for the interest in both Fischer-Tropsch diesel
and liquefying natural gas. CBG and hydrogen are both
gaseous fuels, which require larger volumes and are uneco-
nomic to transport. As can be seen in Figure 11, CBG and
hydrogen have the lowest energy densities. However, all
the fuels other than synthetic diesel have energy densities
that are significantly lower than gasoline or diesel. There is
the possibility of requiring less energy in dedicated vehicles
due to, for example, a higher octane number in methanol,
but the effect would not be great enough to completely
counter the disparity between the energy densities.
As previously explained, the volumetric energy density
makes a large difference. If less fuel can be transported in
a single truck, more energy is required to transport fuels
with low volumetric energy density. This was another part
of the study made by Ahmadi Moghaddam et al. [9] – how
much energy can be yielded from the different biogas-
based fuels depending on how far they have to be distrib-
uted. As Figure 12 shows, CBG might be the best at shorter
distances, but at longer distances, it will be more efficient
to use liquid fuel, even if it uses more energy in its produc-
tion phase. CBG, which had the largest fuel yield and best
efficiency at a 100 km distribution distance, is even the fuel
with the worst efficiency if the distribution distance was
scaled up to 1000 km – simply due to the amount of
energy needed to transport it for the longer distance.
Figure 10. The fuel yield from producing some of the alternatives from bio-
gas, based on Ahmadi Moghaddam et al. [9].
Figure 11. The volumetric energy density of the biogas-based fuels.
Technical challenges
Apart from energy, fuels can also have other characteristics
that need to be considered. The temperature needs to stay
at below 162  C to keep biomethane liquid, meaning that
there is a need for constant cooling of the system. LBG will
thus be most suited for vehicles that are used continuously
without long breaks in which the liquid can have the
chance to evaporate.
An important part of the spiked interests of the poten-
tial biogas-based fuels is that they would have less emis-
sions of both air pollutants and greenhouse gases.
However, less air pollution and global warming do not
mean that the fuel is good in other ways. Methanol, which
can be used in fuel cells to completely take away the local
air pollution from combustion engines, is toxic and burns
with an invisible flame [107], which makes accidents more
hazardous. Another problem is that even though the burn-
ing of CBG and LBG will not add to global warming, small
leaks of it will. The methane that leaks is a powerful green-
house gas and has 72 times the effect of carbon dioxide
from a 20-year perspective, or 25 times the effect of carbon
dioxide from a 100-year perspective [155]. Large spills of
methane can thus quite easily counteract the climate bene-
fits of using a renewable fuel instead of a fossil fuel.
There are also some other technical difficulties to con-
sider. Methanol is corrosive [121], which makes the require-
ments on the engine higher. DME also requires more from
the engine since the viscosity is lower and there are prob-
lems with lubrication [26].
These kinds of technical challenges are not a problem
per se – for example, gasoline is also toxic, and ethanol is
also corrosive. However, the difficulty can lie in if the tech-
nology is less mature and has not had the opportunity to
develop the best way to deal with the difficulties. This is

Figure 12. The energy yield for fueling a bus with some of the different alternatives at two different distances, based on Ahmadi Moghaddam et al. [9].
especially the case for methanol and DME, which are both
the least mature technologies at the same time as they
both have technical difficulties that increase the require-
ments for the engine.
Technological maturity and current use of the fuel
The alternatives differ a lot in how mature the technologies
are, which in many cases depends upon what investments
in the fossil versions have been made previously since the
biogas versions are all interchangeable with their fossil
counterparts. In the same way, the actual potential of the
fuels can, in the end, largely depend upon what invest-
ments will be done by the actors producing and using the
interchangeable fossil versions, as actors producing and
using the biogas-based versions do not at the moment
have the resources to make such large investments.
CBG has come furthest in its technological development,
with millions of vehicles worldwide that could run on it
and experiences with biogas versions since the 1990s. LBG
has also come quite far in its technological development,
and there is a trend towards more heavy road transports
and ships running on liquefied methane as well as
increased production of LBG.
Since a few years back, there exist commercial hydrogen
fuel cell vehicles, but they are still rare and expensive.
Hydrogen is also, together with electricity, almost always
part of long-term goals for the transportation sector since
fuel cells can be more efficient than combustion engines,
do not have any emissions of air pollutants and can be
produced from excess electricity.
Methanol is used for blends in gasoline in some parts of
the world, like China. However, the use of it as fuel is still
rare outside the few countries that have invested in it, and
the interest is very local. There are, however, some ships
that use methanol as fuel, and there is a theoretical possi-
bility to use it in fuel cells. DME is the least technologically
mature fuel and has until now only been used in vehicles
for field tests and demonstrations. There is no infrastruc-
ture that can be used and adding the technological diffi-
culties it is unlikely that dimethyl ether will be used in
large scales in the near future.
The production of synthetic diesel from biogas via the
Fischer-Tropsch process is non-existent, but synthetic diesel
BIOFUELS 595
can be used in all existing diesel vehicles and diesel infra-
structure without any need to update the fleet. FT diesel is
interchangeable with diesel and can thus be directly used
in a large part of the current world fleet of road vehicles,
which is also a large part of the explanation why there his-
torically has been an interest in this fuel. This alternative
would be resource efficient since it would decrease the
amount of fossil fuel without requiring any new vehicles.
However, due to the low yield of FT diesel from biogas
that Ahmadi Moghaddam et al. [9] found, it would not be
the most resource-efficient way of using biogas. The discus-
sions on banning diesel vehicles in some capacities that
have emerged in some countries [156] may also influence
the interest in this alternative negatively.
Conclusions
The production of fuels from biogas mainly follows two dif-
ferent tracks – either upgrading to biomethane and then
compressing it (CBG) or liquefying it (LBG), or gasifying it
to syngas to use for further fuel synthesis (hydrogen,
methanol, DME and FT diesel).
CBG and LBG are the only two alternatives that are cur-
rently being produced commercially from biogas, and are
the most likely options for biogas use in the transport sec-
tor in the near future. CBG has come further in its techno-
logical maturity with millions of vehicles worldwide using
CNG. CBG can also be economically viable in smaller scales
than the other alternatives, which can be an important fac-
tor as the raw material for producing biogas is often
spread out with smaller volumes over a larger area.
However, the use of LNG is increasing in heavy duty
vehicles and shipping, which enables the production and
use of LBG.
Hydrogen, methanol, DME and FT diesel are only
extremely rarely produced from biogas, if at all. Among
these four fuels, hydrogen is the most likely option for fur-
ther developments, as it will likely be a part of the future
transport system due to its use in pollution-free fuel cell
vehicles. However, both renewable methanol and FT diesel
can be used in common gasoline or diesel engines, with
either low blends (methanol) or high blends (FT diesel).
596 S. DAHLGREN
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful for financial support for writing this article from
the Environmental Bus Project and from the Biogas Research Center
(BRC) under research area 3. The Environmental Bus Project was a pro-
ject funded by Vinnova, where one part focused on alternative usage
areas for biogas. The BRC is a transdisciplinary center of excellence
with the overall goal of promoting resource-efficient biogas solutions.
The author would also like to thank Stefan Anderberg for com-
ments that have greatly improved the manuscript, and for acting as a
sounding board throughout the entire writing process.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Funding
The BRC is funded by the Swedish Energy Agency, Linko €ping
University, SLU and other partners from industry, municipalities, and
several public and private organizations.
ORCID
Sofia Dahlgren http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5643-7680
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