The Biogas Handbook: Science, Production and Applications

With pressure increasing to utilise wastes and residues effectively and sustainably, the production of biogas represents one of the most important routes towards reaching national and international renewable energy targets. The biogas handbook: Science, production and applications provides a comprehensive and systematic guide to the development and deployment of biogas supply chains and technology.

Following a concise overview of biogas as an energy option, part one explores biomass resources and fundamental science and engineering of biogas production, including feedstock characterisation, storage and pre-treatment, and yield optimisation. Plant design, engineering, process optimisation and digestate utilisation are the focus of part two. Topics considered include the engineering and process control of biogas plants, methane emissions in biogas production, and biogas digestate quality, utilisation and land application. Finally, part three discusses international experience and best practice in biogas utilisation. Biogas cleaning and upgrading to biomethane, biomethane use as transport fuel and the generation of heat and power from biogas for stationery applications are all discussed. The book concludes with a review of market development and biomethane certification schemes.

With its distinguished editors and international team of expert contributors, The biogas handbook: Science, production and applications is a practical reference to biogas technology for process engineers, manufacturers, industrial chemists and biochemists, scientists, researchers and academics working in this field.

• Provides a concise overview of biogas as an energy option
• Explores biomass resources for production
• Examines plant design and engineering and process optimisation

Arthur Wellinger is Managing Director of Triple E&M, an internationally operating research and consulting company located in Switzerland, and President of the European Biogas Association.

Jerry Murphy is the Lead Investigator in Bioenergy and Biofuels in the Environmental Research Institute at University College Cork, Ireland.

David Baxter is a member of the Sustainable Transport Unit in the Institute for Energy & Transport of the Joint Research Centre (European Commission, Petten, The Netherlands). He is part of a team providing scientific and technical support to the development and maintenance of sustainability schemes for biomass and bioenergy, including biofuels. In addition, he is a member of the European Bioenergy Industrial Initiative (EIBI) team which is operated within the frame of the Strategic Energy Technologies (SET) Plan. He is also the leader of the International Energy Agency Bioenergy Biogas Task 37, promoting economically and environmentally sustainable management of biogas production and utilisation from agricultural residues, energy crops and municipal wastes.

David Baxter is a materials engineer who joined the European Commission Joint Research Centre in 1991 after working in an industrial company supplying components for power generation and transport.