Methane Products

Methane is produced by many natural processes like decomposition of landfill, waste bioreactor. Methane also occurs in large quantity in Coal mines. The quality of the methane gas is very low and it is mixed with significant quantities of Carbondioxide, Nitrogen and other impurities. This waste stream is usually burned in a stack.

Adsorptech Inc. has developed a new state of the art VPSA technology to purify Methane from waste sources such as Landfill, Waste-water etc. This system does the entire cleanup including the Sulfur compounds, Siloxanes, CO2 and Water using a single process step unlike conventional three or more steps. 

The gas from biological waste sources is compressed using a blower into the beds. The beds have a proprietary mix of various adsorbent materials which allows systematic removal of H2S, CO2, Siloxanes and Water. The purified methane gas is obtained from the top of the Adsorber. After a set time the Active Adsorber bed is switched and is taken off-line for clean-up using a vacuum pump. The technology of regeneration using a combination of heat, vacuum and purge is most unique part of this system and cleans up the beds for reuse.

The system has significant advantages over the conventional methods of waste methane recovery because of lower capital costs and reusable adsorbent beds. The system is economical to remove CO2 down to 1% and all other contaminants down to acceptable ppm levels. It is also possible to clean the gas down to 50 ppm in the same system with some additional losses.

Depending on purity, the gas can be used in various ways

• Upto 90-98% Methane - This high BTU gas can be used directly by Microturbines to produce electricity. To use in Microturbines Siloxanes have to be completely removed. Adsorptech process removes Siloxanes completely.
• 98-99% - This purity meets the natural gas pipeline requirement and can be sold to the utilities
• 99% (< 50ppm CO2) - This purity is required to liquify the Methane to make LNG. LNG can be used as a diesel replacement.