Method for assessing the impact of emission gasses on physiology and productivity in biological methanogenesis

This contribution presents a method for quantification of the impact of emission gasses on the methane production with hydrogenotrophic methanogenic archaea. The developed method allows a robust quantification of the influence of real gasses on the volumetric productivity of methanogenic cultures by uncoupling physiological and mass transfer effects. This is achieved over reference experiments with pure H-2 and CO2, simulating the mass transfer influence of the non-convertible side components by addition of N-2 to the reactant stream. Furthermore, this method was used to examine the performance of Methanothermobacter marburgensis on different emission gasses. None of the present side components had a negative effect on the volumetric methane production rate. The presented method showed to be ready to use as a generic tool for feasibility studies and quantification of the physiological impact regarding the use of exhaust gasses as reactant gas for the biological methanogenesis. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.