Water Scrubbing: A Better Option for Biogas Purification for Effective Storage

Concerns over the environment and the rising costs for energy and wastewater treatment have caused a resurgence of interest in anaerobic treatment and subsequent use of the biogas produced during this treatment of organic wastes as fuel. Biogas from faecal and landfill wastes has become a potential renewable energy source for both domestic and commercial usage especially in Ghana where a 50MW capacity waste-topower plant is undergoing construction. In addition, an average total capacity of about 95MW biogas plants is in operation in other parts of the country. Due to the presence of carbon dioxide (CO ) and hydrogen 2 sulphide (H S) in biogas, it has become extremely difficult to transport and store it effectively especially where 2 it’s produced in commercial quantities. Thus the need emerges for a unified approach for scrubbing, compression and subsequent storage of biogas for wider applications. This paper presents the developments in biogas purification and storage into steel propane and butane tanks (requiring a medium pressure of 1.051.97bar) for easy and cost effective transportation and utilization. The paper also presents water scrubbing as a better option for biogas purification in Ghana.