Comparison of different possibilities for biogas use by Life Cycle Assessment

This contribution aims at introducing the innovative possibility of biogas use through its upgrading to biomethane and to evaluate this process from an environmental point of view, by applying Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), in comparison with direct use of biogas in energy conversion devices, namely, internal combustion engines and molten carbonate fuel cells. Due to their high energy conversion efficiency, fuel cell use resulted the solution with the best environmental performances, followed by internal combustion engines and the by biomethane production. However, when thermal energy is not recovered in the case of both fuel cell and internal combustion engine, the differences with respect to the biomethane case are strongly reduced. (C) 2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd.