Methane recovery from anaerobically treated wastewater

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Wastewater is recognized as a promising source for biomethane, a clean, high-energy density fuel. Anaergia**Inc. is a front runner in providing solutions for energy recovery from wastes. One such focus of Anaergia is to**develop an efficient wastewater treatment process for maximized biomethane production. Anaergia recently**developed Omnivore process that effectively concentrates wastewater and facilitates microbial activity for**wastewater treatment. While this process can dramatically increase the methane production, biomethane**produced during wastewater treatment exists as dissolved gas and therefore requires additional steps for its**extraction. However, the relatively low temperature of typical wastewater (~ 15 °C) makes it difficult to**capture the biomethane, as methane becomes more soluble at lower temperature. This technical barrier limits**the full utilization of their Omnivore process for biomethane production and harvesting from municipal**wastewater.**The proposed research develops a novel separation process that can efficiently extract dissolved methane from**wastewater at a wide range of temperature. The process employs an omniphobic membrane, a special**membrane that can resist wetting by liquids. The dissolved methane is withdrawn from the wastewater across**the omniphobic membrane, to a solvent that has high methane solubility. Key objectives of this research are (1)**identification of proper draw solvents, (2) demonstration of methane extraction, and (3) investigation of**impacts of environmental conditions on methane extraction efficiency. Successful demonstration of the**methane extraction will prove the potential of vastly available municipal wastewater as a source of clean**biofuel. Combined with the Omnivore process, the proposed method can potentially turn the currently**energy-consuming treatment processes into a net energy producer.