Enhancing microbial electrochemical technologies (METs) for commercial-scale biohydrogen and biomethane production from organic waste - MET-Biofuels

Organic wastes including food and drink residues, contaminated wastewaters and agricultural wastes are unavoidable. However, they are often lost to landfill or in the case of wastewater, require significant, energy intensive treatment before they are suitable for reuse or discharge to rivers which represents a significant business cost. These organic waste streams contain energy and nutrients that can be harnessed to generate power/heat, clean water and a treated residue suitable for use as fertiliser.

WASE Limited have developed a novel, patent pending electromethanogenic waste treatment system that can be deployed to harness the value within waste. WASE systems treat/digest the waste under anaerobic conditions (no free oxygen), but in contrast to other anaerobic digestors, WASE's technology includes a bio-electrochemical electrode array within the reactor resulting in waste processing mechanisms that produces 80% pure biomethane as well as water, and a digestate fertiliser.

Increasing the purity of the biogas WASE produces would make it suitable for use as an alternative fuel source for hard-to-electrify commercial and agricultural vehicles and machinery such as tractors. As the initial target markets for WASE are breweries, food producers and farming, this would essentially mean WASE systems could provide a power source for the machinery in use at those businesses, protecting them from volatility in the energy markets, and providing a green source of fuel from their own waste.

In this project WASE will work with Korean partners BioX, Pusan National and Jeonbunk National Univerities, who are developing a microbial electrolysis technology. When integrated into WASE's EMR technology using 3D printed bioelectrodes in development at the University of Wesminster, this should enable WASE's bioreactors to produce biomethane and biohydrogen at \>98% purity.