Biogas, Renewable Natural Gas and Flare Treatment
Biogas and Renewable Natural Gas (RNG) produced from landfills and anaerobic digestion are growing in importance as a sustainable, eco-friendly source of energy for direct use, power generation, pipeline injection and vehicle fuel.
Biogas purification is essential for its monetization. NORIT® activated carbon is the premier choice of engineering firms, plant owners, and operators to remove unwanted impurities to meet pipeline specifications and ensure the protection of process equipment including membranes, compressors, engines and turbines, pipelines and fuel cells.
Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S) Removal
H2S is typically present in biogas. Waste streams that are high in proteins containing sulfur-based amino acids like methionine and cysteine, and construction waste can influence biogas H2S levels.
Our activated carbon effectively removes H2S and:
- Mitigates risk of poisons and foul odors
- Protects plant equipment from corrosion
- Ensures compliance with air permits, and
- Makes RNG profitable by meeting pipeline specifications or enabling use as vehicle fuel
Purifying biogas and concentrating the methane also requires the separation of carbon dioxide, water, nitrogen and the removal of other contaminants (siloxanes and VOCs) before it can be called RNG and used interchangeably with pipeline natural gas.
Our DARCO® BG 1, DARCO BG 1P, and NORIT® ROZ 3 are high performance activated carbons developed specifically for removing H2S from biogas streams.
Siloxane removal
Siloxanes are a group of man-made organic compounds used to make personal hygiene, health care and industrial products. These compounds plus volatile organic compounds result in significant amounts of impurities in wastewater and landfills and contribute to operational inefficiencies and high costs in biogas production.
Even at low levels, siloxanes cause damage to and reduced efficiency of engines, turbines, boilers, fuel cells and catalysts.
NORIT® SILPURE™ activated carbon uses proprietary technology to preferentially adsorb siloxanes over high BTU VOCs commonly found in biogas.
Nitrogen rejection
Landfill gas (LFG) often contains nitrogen. RNG pipelines have maximum nitrogen specifications which can be met using NORIT® RB3 NR in the Nitrogen Rejection Unit’s (NRU) pressure swing adsorption (PSA) process.
With the shift to RNG, the removal of nitrogen is important to biogas upgrading systems and maximizing the Btu value of the gas.
PSA Systems using NORIT® activated carbon are one of the most effective and economical means for separating nitrogen from methane to upgrade biogas to RNG.
NORIT RB3 NR activated carbon has been optimized for robust and highly efficient PSA nitrogen separation systems.
