IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/rensus/v112y2019icp508-520.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Upstream and downstream processing of microalgal biogas: Emissions, energy and economic performances under carbon taxation

Author

Listed:
  • Brigagão, George Victor
  • Wiesberg, Igor Lapenda
  • Pinto, Juliana Leite
  • Araújo, Ofélia de Queiroz Fernandes
  • de Medeiros, José Luiz

Abstract

The study evaluates alternative and innovative arrangements for processing a microalgae biomass by anaerobic digestion to produce biogas. Cell wall limits bio-accessibility of microalgal intracellular compounds, demanding pretreatment to improve methane yield. Two pretreatments are evaluated at 75 °C using residual heat: thermal (1 bar) and thermomechanical (20 bar),which increased biogas production in 40% and 159%, respectively. Thermomechanical pretreatment is coupled to the following downstream processing cases: (i) biomethane; (ii) bioelectricity; (iii) biomethane with enhanced oil recovery; (iv) bioelectricity with enhanced oil recovery and (v) pressurized anaerobic digestion (6 bar) for biomethane with enhanced oil recovery. Processes are compared in three dimensions: energy, economic and carbon footprint. Such a framework including upstream and downstream processes, besides comparison of atmospheric and pressurized anaerobic digestion, with in-depth economic analysis, configures the main novelties of this work. Resource utilization efficiency metrics point advantage of pressurized anaerobic digestion case, while indicate biomethane production as less efficient than bioelectricity. When carbon dioxide post-combustion capture and enhanced oil recovery are applied to abate bioelectricity emissions, bioelectricity loses competitiveness to biomethane due to high energy penalties. Sensitivity of Net Present Value to varying carbon taxation (increasing costs), Capture & Trade mechanism and enhanced oil recovery (adding revenues) show superior resilience of biomethane with enhanced oil recovery. In base scenario conditions, where 30US$/GJ electricity is applied, maximum biomass costs to economic feasibility for cases (i) to (v) are 50, 21, 100, 5 and 83US$/t (dry-basis), respectively. Priced at 50US$/GJ, the bioelectricity production frontier to feasibility starts at biomass costs ≈150US$/t.

Suggested Citation

  • Brigagão, George Victor & Wiesberg, Igor Lapenda & Pinto, Juliana Leite & Araújo, Ofélia de Queiroz Fernandes & de Medeiros, José Luiz, 2019. "Upstream and downstream processing of microalgal biogas: Emissions, energy and economic performances under carbon taxation," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 508-520.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:rensus:v:112:y:2019:i:c:p:508-520
    DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2019.06.009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032119304009
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.rser.2019.06.009?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Liu, Junying & Song, Yunmeng & Qiu, Wen, 2017. "Oleaginous microalgae Nannochloropsis as a new model for biofuel production: Review & analysis," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 154-162.
    2. Córdova, Olivia & Santis, Julissa & Ruiz-Fillipi, Gonzalo & Zuñiga, María Elvira & Fermoso, Fernando G. & Chamy, Rolando, 2018. "Microalgae digestive pretreatment for increasing biogas production," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 82(P3), pages 2806-2813.
    3. Budzianowski, Wojciech M., 2016. "A review of potential innovations for production, conditioning and utilization of biogas with multiple-criteria assessment," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 1148-1171.
    4. Kadam, Rahul & Panwar, N.L., 2017. "Recent advancement in biogas enrichment and its applications," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 892-903.
    5. Bohutskyi, Pavlo & Chow, Steven & Ketter, Ben & Betenbaugh, Michael J. & Bouwer, Edward J., 2015. "Prospects for methane production and nutrient recycling from lipid extracted residues and whole Nannochloropsis salina using anaerobic digestion," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 718-731.
    6. Jain, Siddharth & Jain, Shivani & Wolf, Ingo Tim & Lee, Jonathan & Tong, Yen Wah, 2015. "A comprehensive review on operating parameters and different pretreatment methodologies for anaerobic digestion of municipal solid waste," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 142-154.
    7. Costa, Jorge Alberto Vieira & Freitas, Bárbara Catarina Bastos de & Lisboa, Cristiane Reinaldo & Santos, Thaisa Duarte & Brusch, Lucio Renato de Fraga & de Morais, Michele Greque, 2019. "Microalgal biorefinery from CO2 and the effects under the Blue Economy," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 58-65.
    8. Brémond, Ulysse & de Buyer, Raphaëlle & Steyer, Jean-Philippe & Bernet, Nicolas & Carrere, Hélène, 2018. "Biological pretreatments of biomass for improving biogas production: an overview from lab scale to full-scale," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 583-604.
    9. Hall, Charles A.S. & Lambert, Jessica G. & Balogh, Stephen B., 2014. "EROI of different fuels and the implications for society," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 141-152.
    10. Zhou, Kui & Chaemchuen, Somboon & Verpoort, Francis, 2017. "Alternative materials in technologies for Biogas upgrading via CO2 capture," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 1414-1441.
    11. Sun, Qie & Li, Hailong & Yan, Jinying & Liu, Longcheng & Yu, Zhixin & Yu, Xinhai, 2015. "Selection of appropriate biogas upgrading technology-a review of biogas cleaning, upgrading and utilisation," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 521-532.
    12. Scholz, Marco & Melin, Thomas & Wessling, Matthias, 2013. "Transforming biogas into biomethane using membrane technology," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 17(C), pages 199-212.
    13. Zabed, Hossain M. & Akter, Suely & Yun, Junhua & Zhang, Guoyan & Awad, Faisal N. & Qi, Xianghui & Sahu, J.N., 2019. "Recent advances in biological pretreatment of microalgae and lignocellulosic biomass for biofuel production," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 105-128.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wiesberg, Igor Lapenda & de Medeiros, José Luiz & Paes de Mello, Raphael V. & Santos Maia, Jeiveison G.S. & Bastos, João Bruno V. & Araújo, Ofélia de Queiroz F., 2021. "Bioenergy production from sugarcane bagasse with carbon capture and storage: Surrogate models for techno-economic decisions," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    2. Leong, Yoong Kit & Chang, Jo-Shu, 2023. "Waste stream valorization-based low-carbon bioeconomy utilizing algae as a biorefinery platform," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    3. Poblete, Israel Bernardo S. & Araujo, Ofélia de Queiroz F. & de Medeiros, José Luiz, 2020. "Dynamic analysis of sustainable biogas-combined-cycle plant: Time-varying demand and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    4. Lim, Yi An & Ilankoon, I.M.S.K. & Chong, Meng Nan & Foo, Su Chern, 2023. "Improving microalgae growth and carbon capture through micro-size bubbles generation in flat-panel photobioreactors: Impacts of different gas sparger designs on mixing performance," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    5. Brigagão, George Victor & de Medeiros, José Luiz & Araújo, Ofélia de Queiroz F. & Mikulčić, Hrvoje & Duić, Neven, 2021. "A zero-emission sustainable landfill-gas-to-wire oxyfuel process: Bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Qyyum, Muhammad Abdul & Haider, Junaid & Qadeer, Kinza & Valentina, Valentina & Khan, Amin & Yasin, Muhammad & Aslam, Muhammad & De Guido, Giorgia & Pellegrini, Laura A. & Lee, Moonyong, 2020. "Biogas to liquefied biomethane: Assessment of 3P's–Production, processing, and prospects," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    2. Khan, Muhammad Usman & Lee, Jonathan Tian En & Bashir, Muhammad Aamir & Dissanayake, Pavani Dulanja & Ok, Yong Sik & Tong, Yen Wah & Shariati, Mohammad Ali & Wu, Sarah & Ahring, Birgitte Kiaer, 2021. "Current status of biogas upgrading for direct biomethane use: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    3. Gong, Huijuan & Chen, Zezhi & Yu, Huiqiang & Wu, Weili & Wang, Weixing & Pang, Honglei & Du, Mengfan, 2018. "Methane recovery in a combined amine absorption and gas steam boiler as a self-provided system for biogas upgrading," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 744-751.
    4. Zheng, Lei & Cheng, Shikun & Han, Yanzhao & Wang, Min & Xiang, Yue & Guo, Jiali & Cai, Di & Mang, Heinz-Peter & Dong, Taili & Li, Zifu & Yan, Zhengxu & Men, Yu, 2020. "Bio-natural gas industry in China: Current status and development," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    5. Zabed, Hossain M. & Akter, Suely & Yun, Junhua & Zhang, Guoyan & Zhang, Yufei & Qi, Xianghui, 2020. "Biogas from microalgae: Technologies, challenges and opportunities," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    6. Sánchez, Antonio Santos & Silva, Yuri Lopes & Kalid, Ricardo Araújo & Cohim, Eduardo & Torres, Ednildo Andrade, 2017. "Waste bio-refineries for the cassava starch industry: New trends and review of alternatives," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 1265-1275.
    7. R. C. Assunção, Lorena & A. S. Mendes, Pietro & Matos, Stelvia & Borschiver, Suzana, 2021. "Technology roadmap of renewable natural gas: Identifying trends for research and development to improve biogas upgrading technology management," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 292(C).
    8. Mulu, Elshaday & M'Arimi, Milton M. & Ramkat, Rose C., 2021. "A review of recent developments in application of low cost natural materials in purification and upgrade of biogas," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    9. Tabatabaei, Meisam & Aghbashlo, Mortaza & Valijanian, Elena & Kazemi Shariat Panahi, Hamed & Nizami, Abdul-Sattar & Ghanavati, Hossein & Sulaiman, Alawi & Mirmohamadsadeghi, Safoora & Karimi, Keikhosr, 2020. "A comprehensive review on recent biological innovations to improve biogas production, Part 2: Mainstream and downstream strategies," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 1392-1407.
    10. Apoorva Upadhyay & Andrey A. Kovalev & Elena A. Zhuravleva & Dmitriy A. Kovalev & Yuriy V. Litti & Shyam Kumar Masakapalli & Nidhi Pareek & Vivekanand Vivekanand, 2022. "Recent Development in Physical, Chemical, Biological and Hybrid Biogas Upgradation Techniques," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-30, December.
    11. Guerin, Turlough F., 2022. "Business model scaling can be used to activate and grow the biogas-to-grid market in Australia to decarbonise hard-to-abate industries: An application of entrepreneurial management," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    12. Philipp Biegger & Florian Kirchbacher & Ana Roza Medved & Martin Miltner & Markus Lehner & Michael Harasek, 2018. "Development of Honeycomb Methanation Catalyst and Its Application in Power to Gas Systems," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-17, June.
    13. Schipfer, F. & Mäki, E. & Schmieder, U. & Lange, N. & Schildhauer, T. & Hennig, C. & Thrän, D., 2022. "Status of and expectations for flexible bioenergy to support resource efficiency and to accelerate the energy transition," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    14. Ardolino, F. & Cardamone, G.F. & Parrillo, F. & Arena, U., 2021. "Biogas-to-biomethane upgrading: A comparative review and assessment in a life cycle perspective," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    15. O'Connor, S. & Ehimen, E. & Pillai, S.C. & Black, A. & Tormey, D. & Bartlett, J., 2021. "Biogas production from small-scale anaerobic digestion plants on European farms," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    16. Shen, Feng & Xiong, Xinni & Fu, Junyan & Yang, Jirui & Qiu, Mo & Qi, Xinhua & Tsang, Daniel C.W., 2020. "Recent advances in mechanochemical production of chemicals and carbon materials from sustainable biomass resources," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    17. Zamri, M.F.M.A. & Hasmady, Saiful & Akhiar, Afifi & Ideris, Fazril & Shamsuddin, A.H. & Mofijur, M. & Fattah, I. M. Rizwanul & Mahlia, T.M.I., 2021. "A comprehensive review on anaerobic digestion of organic fraction of municipal solid waste," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    18. Moioli, Emanuele & Schildhauer, Tilman, 2022. "Negative CO2 emissions from flexible biofuel synthesis: Concepts, potentials, technologies," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    19. Susanne Theuerl & Christiane Herrmann & Monika Heiermann & Philipp Grundmann & Niels Landwehr & Ulrich Kreidenweis & Annette Prochnow, 2019. "The Future Agricultural Biogas Plant in Germany: A Vision," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-32, January.
    20. Ghafoori, Mohammad Samim & Loubar, Khaled & Marin-Gallego, Mylène & Tazerout, Mohand, 2022. "Techno-economic and sensitivity analysis of biomethane production via landfill biogas upgrading and power-to-gas technology," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 239(PB).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:rensus:v:112:y:2019:i:c:p:508-520. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600126/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.