• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.40-49
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• 2021

In this study, the optical properties, heat transfer capabilities and chemical reaction performance of a methane thermal decomposition reactor using solar heat as a heat source were numerically analyzed on the basis of the cavity shape. The optical properties were analyzed using TracePro, a Monte Carlo ray tracing-based program, and the heat transfer analysis was performed using Fluent, a CFD program. An indirect heating tubular reactor was rotated at a constant speed to prevent damage by the heat source in the solar furnace. The inside of the reactor was filled with a porous catalyst for methane decomposition, and the outside was insulated to reduce heat loss. The performance of the reactor, based on cavity shape, was calculated when solar heat was concentrated on the reactor surface and methane was supplied into the reactor in an environment with a solar irradiance of 700 W/㎡, a wind speed of 1 m/s, and an outdoor temperature of 25℃. Thus, it was confirmed that the heat loss of the full-cavity model decreased to 13% and the methane conversion rate increased by 33.5% when compared to the semi-cavity model.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.40-49
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• 2021

This paper explains the development process of methane decomposition to hydrogen and carbon black using solar thermal energy. It also demonstrates the advantages and disadvantages of five different reactors for each development stage, including the reactor's experimental results. Starting with the initial direct heating type reactor, the indirect heating type reactor was developed through five modifications. The 40-kWth solar furnace installed at the Korea Institute of Energy Research was used for the experiment. In the experiment using the developed indirect heating reactor, an 89.0% methane to hydrogen conversion rate was achieved at a methane flow rate of 40 L/min, obtained at about twice the flow rate compared to previous advanced studies.

• Clean Technology
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.182-192
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• 2022

This study provides an overview of the production costs of methane and hydrogen via water electrolysis-based hydrogen production followed by a methanation based methane production technology utilizing CO₂ from external sources. The study shows a comparative way for economic optimization of green methane generation using excess free electricity from renewable sources. The study initially developed the overall process on the Aspen Plus simulation tool. Aspen Plus estimated the capital expenditure for most of the equipment except for the methanation reactor and electrolyzer. The capital expenditure, the operating expenditure and the feed cost were used in a discounted cash flow based economic model for the methane production cost estimation. The study compared different reactor configurations as well. The same model was also used for a hydrogen production cost estimation. The optimized economic model estimated a methane production cost of $11.22/mcf when the plant is operating for 4000 hr/year and electricity is available for zero cost. Furthermore, a hydrogen production cost of $2.45/GJ was obtained. A sensitivity analysis was performed for the methane production cost as the electrolyzer cost varies across different electrolyzer types. A sensitivity study was also performed for the changing electricity cost, the number of operation hours per year and the plant capacity. The estimated levelized cost of methane (LCOM) in this study was less than or comparable with the existing studies available in the literature.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.11a
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• pp.101-101
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• 2010

Anaerobic digestion(AD) is the most promising method for treating and recycling of different organic wastes, such as organic fraction of municipal solid waste, household wastes, animal manure, agro-industrial wastes, industrial organic wastes and sewage sludge. During AD, i.e. organic materials are decomposed by anaerobic forming bacteria and fina1ly converted to excellent fertilizer and biogas which is a mixture of carbon dioxide and methane. AD has been one of the leading technologies that can make a large contribution to produce renewable energy and to reduce $CO_2$ and other green-house gas(GHG) emission, it is becoming a key method for both waste treatment and recovery of a renewable fuel and other valuable co-products. Currently some 80% of the world's overall energy supply of about 400 EJ per year in derived from fossil fuels. Nevertheless roughly 10~15% of this demand is covered by biomass resources, making biomass by far the most important renewable energy source used to date. The representative biofuels produced from the biomass are bioethanol, biodiesel and biogas, and currently biogas plays a smaller than other biofuels but steadily growing role. Traditionally anaerobic digestion applied for different biowaste e.g. sewage sludge, manure, other organic wastes treatment and stabilization, biogas has become a well established energy resource. However, the biowaste are fairly limited in respect to the production and utilization as renewable source, but the plant biomass, the so called "energy crops" are used for more biogas production in EU countries and the investigation on the biomethane potential of different crops and plant materials have been carried out. In Korea, with steadily increasing oil prices and improved environmental regulations, since 2005 anaerobic digestion was again stimulated, especially on the biogasification of different biowastes and agro-industrial biomass including "energy crops". This study have been carried out to investigate anaerobic biodegradability by the biochemical methane potential(BMP) test of animal manures, different forage crops i.e. "energy crops", plant and industrial organic wastes in the condition of thermophilic temperature, The biodegradability of animal manure were 63.2% and 58.2% with $315m^3CH_4/tonVS$ of cattle slurry and $370m^3CH_4/tonVS$ of pig slurry in ultimate methane yields. Those of winter forage crops were the range 75% to 87% with ultimate methane yield of $378m^3CH_4/tonVS$ to $450m^3CH_4/tonVS$ and those of summer forage crops were the range 81% to 85% with ultimate methane yield of $392m^3CH_4/tonVS$ to $415m^3CH_4/tonVS$. The forge crops as "energy crops" could be used as good renewable energy source to increase methane production and to improve biodegradability in co-digestion with animal manure or only energy crop digestion.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.156-161
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• 2012

Marine biomass is considered an important substrate for anaerobic digestion to recovery energy i.e. methane. Nevertheless, marine biomass has attracted little attention by researchers compared to terrestrial feedstock for anaerobic digestion. In this study, biochemical methane potential (BMP) test was used to evaluate generation of renewable energy from starfish. A cumulative biogas yield of $748{\pm}67mL\;g^{-1}VS^{-1}$ was obtained after 60 days of digestion. The cumulative methane yield of $486{\pm}28mL\;CH_4\;g^{-1}VS^{-1}$ was obtained after 60 days of digestion. The methane content of the biogas was approximately 70%. The calculated data applying the modified Gompertz equation for the cumulative $CH_4$ production showed good correlation with the experimental result obtained from this batch study. Since the result obtained from this study is comparable to results with other substrates, marine biomass can be co-digested with food waste or swine wastewater to produce $CH_4$ gas that will help to reduce the gap in global energy demand.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.1-12
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• 2023

In this study, an efficient one-dimensional model was developed for predicting microchannel steam/methane reformers with thin washcoat catalyst layers with a focus on low-pressure reforming conditions suitable for distributed hydrogen production systems for fuel cell applications. The governing equations for steam/methane mixture gas flowing through the microchannel reformer were derived considering the species conservation with reforming reactions and energy conservation with external convective heat supply. The reaction rates for the developed model were simply determined through the catalyst effectiveness factor correlations instead of performing complicated calculations for the steam/methane reforming process occurring inside the washcoat catalyst layers. The accuracy of the developed was verified by comparing the results obtained herein with those obtained by the detailed computational fluid dynamics calculation for the same microchannel reformer.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.46-52
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• 2023

Methane is the second most emitted greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide. Despite lower emissions than those of carbon dioxide, methane receives significant attention owing to its more than 20-fold higher global warming potential. Consequently, the importance of research on methanotrophic bacteria, microorganisms capable of converting methane gas into high-value materials, is increasingly emphasized. In the case of methanotrophic bacteria, knowledge on episomal plasmids that can be used for genetic engineering remains lacking, which poses significant challenges to the engineering process. The replication origin sequences of natural plasmids within methanotrophic bacteria have been predicted through in silico methods. The basic characteristics of the replication origin, such as a high A/T ratio, repetitive sequences, and proximity to proteins related to replication, have been used as criteria for identifying the replication origin. As a result, a region with a sequence of 18 base pairs repeated eight times could be identified. The putative replication origin sequence thus identified generally takes the form of iterons, but it also possesses unique features such as the length of the gap between iterons and the repetition of identical iteron sequences. This information can be valuable for future design of episomal plasmids applicable to methanotrophs.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.56-64
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• 2008

Anaerobic biodegradability (AB), which can be determined with the ultimate methane yield by the decomposition of organic materials, is one of the important parameters for the design and the operation of anaerobic digestion plant. In this study, Biochemical methane potential (BMP) test has been carried out to evaluate the methane yields of animal manures such as pig and cattle slurries, and different forage crops cultivated at the reclaimed tideland such as maize, sorghum, barley, rye, Italian ryegrass (IRG), rape, rush, and waste sludge produced from slaughterhouse wastewater treatment plant (SSWTP). In the ultimate methane yield and biodegradability of animal manure, those of pig slurry were 345 $mlCH_4/gVS_{fed}$ and 44.7% higher than 247 $mlCH_4/gVS_{fed}$ and 46.4% of cattle slurry (Cat. 2). The ultimate methane yield and biodegradability of spike-crop rye (Rye 1) were 442.36 $mlCH_4/gVS_{fed}$ and 86.5% the highest among different forage crops, those of the other forage crops ranged from 306.6 to 379 $mlCH_4/gVS_{fed}$ of methane yield with the AB having the range of about 60 to 77%. Therefore the forage crops could be used as a good substrate to increase the methane production and to improve the biodegradability in anaerobic co-digestion together with animal manure.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.39-44
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• 2008

Partial oxidation of methane was carried out by ceria-promoted Ni-substituted hydrotalcite-derived catalysts ($Ce_xNi_3$-HTlc ; x=$0.3{\sim}1.2$) in a fixed-bed reactor. The Ce/Ni ratio of 0.3/3 in the catalyst showed the best catalytic activity but the Ce/Ni ratio became higher above 0.3/3, the catalyst became less active in short-term tests. No ceria promoted catalyst was started to decrease $CH_4$ conversion after 20 h but the Ce/Ni ratio 0.3/3 catalyst was kept its stability in long-term tests.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.24-32
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• 2012

Natural gas hydrates have a high potential as the 21st century new energy resource, because it have a large amount of deposits in many deep-water and permafrost regions of the world widely. Natural gas hydrate is formed by physical binding between water molecule and gas mainly composed of methane, which is captured in the cavities of water molecules under the specific temperature and pressure. $1m^3$ methane hydrate can be decomposed to the methane gas of $172m^3$ and water of $0.8m^3$ at standard condition. Therefore, there are a lot of practical applications such as separation processes, natural gas storage transportation and carbon dioxide sequestration. For the industrial utilization of methane hydrate, it is very important to rapidly manufacture hydrate. However, when methane hydrate is artificially formed, its reaction time may be too long and the gas consumption in water becomes relatively low, because the reaction rate between water and gas is low. So in this study, hydrate formation was experimented by adding natural zeolite and Synthetic zeolite 5A in distilled water, respectively. The results show that when the Synthetic zeolite 5A of 0.01 wt% was, the amount of gas consumed during the formation of methane hydrate was higher than that in the natural zeolite. Also, the natural zeolite and Synthetic zeolite 5A decreased the hydrate formation time to a greater extent than the distilled water at the same subcooling temperature.