Adsorptive Biogas Purification from Siloxanes—A Critical Review

Kazimierz Gaj
Additional contact information
Kazimierz Gaj: Faculty of Environmental Engineering, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, 50-370 Wrocław, Poland

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 10, 1-10

Abstract: Siloxanes are among the most technologically troublesome trace compounds present in biogas. As a result of their combustion, hard-to-remove sediments are formed, blocking biogas energy processing devices and reducing the efficiency of biogas plants. The purpose of this study was to help investors and designers to choose the optimal technology for the adsorptive removal of volatile methylsiloxanes (VMSs) from biogas and to identify adsorbents worth further development. This paper critically reviews and discusses the state-of-the-art technologies for the adsorption removal of siloxanes from biogas, indicating potentially beneficial directions in their development and deficiencies in the state of knowledge. The origin of VMSs in biogas, their selected physicochemical properties, technological problems that they can cause and their typical versus limit concentrations in biogases are presented. Both the already implemented methods of adsorptive VMSs removal from landfill and sewage gases and the ones being under development are verified and systematized. The parameters and effectiveness of adsorption processes are discussed, and individual adsorbents are compared. Possible ways of regenerating spent adsorbents are evaluated and prospects for their application are assessed. Finally, zeolite-based adsorbents—which can also be used for biogas desulfurization—and adsorbents based on polymer resins, as being particularly active against VMSs and most amenable to multiple regeneration, are identified.

Keywords: biogas treatment; volatile methylsiloxanes; siloxane concentrations; adsorbents; regeneration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/10/2605/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/10/2605/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:10:p:2605-:d:360884

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().