INNOVATION May-June 2014

f ea t u r e s

Homegrown Technology Reshaping the Economics of Biogas Production

Aerial shot of a pulp mill, where MicroSludge technology could reduce waste production by 50%.

Jean Sorensen With the increasing interest in renewable energy sources, biogas—methane gas produced when bacteria breaks down organic material—is emerging as an alternative. When harnessed, biogas can be used for heating, generating electricity or powering vehicles. The main sources of biogas today are wastewater treatment plants, landfills and agricultural operations where organic material can be broken down to produce gas without the presence of oxygen in anaerobic digesters. Despite its usefulness, biogas production faces challenges. One of the greatest barriers to economical and viable biogas production from industrial and municipal wastewater treatment plants has been microscopic. The walls of the tiny microbes that make up waste sludge are formidable. “Sludge microbes have extremely tough exterior cell walls,” says Patrick Neill, P.Eng., who for the past five years has worked for Paradigm Environmental Technologies in Vancouver. The BC company has found a technological solution that crushes those exterior walls. The MicroSludge Cell Disrupter causes cell walls to be sheared under tremendous pressure so that a cell’s “guts” spill out to bacteria that feasts upon the material, producing biogas. The process is known as cell lysis

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