Abatement of siloxanes in sewage biogascoupling adsorption and biological treatments

Resumen

The anaerobic digestion of organic matter causes the formation of biogas that can be used in energy conversion systems for the production of electricity and heat, injection into the gas grid or as a fuel. However, biogas includes a wide range of trace contaminants, from which siloxanes are the most harmful since, during biogas combustion reactions, they promote serious damage to energy conversion units. The most commonly used technology to reduce their concentration in biogas is adsorption into activated carbon. Despite the high efficiency in the elimination of siloxane, the frequent replacement of exhausted activated carbon increases the operating costs of the technology. In this thesis, different types of activated carbon both commercial and experimental from the valorization of waste have been evaluated. Moreover, biological technologies have also been applied such as biotrickling filtration and membrane bioreactors, with the objective of increasing the sustainability in the purification of biogas.