Synthetic Natural Gas: From Coal, Dry Biomass, and Power–to–Gas Applications

Provides an overview of the different pathways to produce Synthetic Natural Gas

Due to the increasing integration of stochastic renewable sources like photovoltaics and wind energy into the electricity generation, the demand for balancing the electricity supply and the demand over spatial and temporal distances is increasing. For the future, even the seasonal storage of electricity may be necessary. Here, the production of Synthetic Natural Gas (SNG) from domestic resources such as biomass and coal can play an important role. Moreover, in times where the electricity production from renewables exceeds the actual demand in the electricity grid (a situation that today occasionally is observed in Central Europe and is expected to be more common in future), producing SNG could utilise the excess electricity instead of curtailing photovoltaics or wind turbines.

Synthetic Natural Gas from Coal, Dry Biomass and Power–to–Gas applications  aims at a suitable overview over the different pathways to produce SNG. The first four chapters cover the main process steps during conversion of coal and dry biomass to SNG: gasification, gas cleaning, methanation and gas upgrading. The main technology options are highlighted and the impact of a technology choice for the downstream processes and the complete process chain. In these chapters, especially in the chapter on methanation reactors, the state–of–the art coal–to–SNG processes are discussed in detail. The following chapters describe a number of novel processes for the production of SNG; these processes comprise those which are already in operation and processes which are still under development.

The bookenables the reader to understand and distinguish the different processes available. It supports engineers (and scientists) in companies, industry and academia in conceptualizing efficient and sustainable energy systems and enables them to find the best solution for their needs in planning or running SNG plants.

Tilman J. Schildhauer is a Senior Scientist at Paul Scherrer Institut, Switzerland since 2005, working mainly in the field of converting dry biomass to SNG and electricity. These activities aim at developing sustainable and (energetically and economically) efficient processes based on the analysis of the complete process chain on the one hand and investigation of the fundamentals of the crucial process steps on the other hand. Since 2014, he is also Scientific Coordinator of the Energy Systems Integration platform at Paul Scherrer Institut. Dr. Schildhauer has authored over 60 scientific papers and two book chapters.

Serge Biollaz is the Head of the Thermal Process Engineering group at Paul Scherrer Institut since 2000. In 2006/2007 he spent a sabbatical leave at Gas Technology Institut (GTI), Chicago, USA, working on catalytic biomass gasification, hot gas cleaning and integration of biomass/coal gasification with high temperature fuel cells (SOFC). Serge Biollaz co–authored more than 50 scientific papers and is national expert in the IEA Bioenergy, Task 33 Thermal gasification of biomass (since 2003), as well as expert on SNG in the European Biofuels Technology Platform (EBTP), WG2 "Conversion" (since 2009.)