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In recent years,renewable energy projects have accelerated.
\nToday, any type of biomass can be converted into energy. And the multiplicity of processes means that all energy needs can be met: heat, electricity, cooling, liquid fuels (biofuels, biochar), solid fuels (black pellets) and gaseous fuels (biogas, methane, syngas, hydrogen).
\nThe hydrothermal gasification process is still little-known, but very promising. It can be used to produce methane-rich gas from liquid waste, such as slurry, manure, digestate from anaerobic digestion plants, sewage sludge or organic effluent from industrial activities.
\nThis process was developed by the Swiss company TreaTrech in collaboration with the Swiss Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI). Pilot units have been developed. The first to demonstrate technical feasibility using microalgae, and the second built by EPFL, which led to the patenting of a new solid mineral extractor system (see video).
\nGRTgaz has since joined the hydrothermal gasification project and is involved in the development of the sector, providing support to technology developers and initiating pilot and demonstration projects. This support is primarily aimed at facilitating the arrival of hydrothermal gasification on the French market and diversifying the inputs available to the technology.
\nGRTgaz recently published a report on the potential of hydrothermal gasification in France(see the report).
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Hydrothermal gasification involves placing liquid biomass at high temperature (between 400 and 700°C) and high pressure (250 to 300 bars). It produces a methane-rich gas that can be directly injected into the gas grid or into a CNG (natural gas for vehicles) station. The process offers a very high carbon conversion rate, potentially in excess of 90%. It generates little ultimate waste, i.e. waste that can no longer be recycled, and also recovers mineral salts such as phosphorus. Video explanation of hydrothermal gasification.
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Technology meets a triple challenge.
\nFirstly, it should support the transition to carbon neutrality, which the French government hopes to achieve by 2050, and complement other green gas production techniques, such as methanization, which already transforms agricultural residues into biogas. Later, pyrogasification and power-to-gas will follow.
\nSecondly, hydrothermal gasification efficiently mobilizes waste, offering an alternative to traditional recovery methods.
\nLast but not least, it meets a regional planning requirement, as it can be carried out in small-scale facilities that could be deployed, for example, as close as possible to farms.
\nAnother important point is that France has considerable deposits of inputs that can be converted into gas. In the long term, the main input should be methanization digestates, the quantity of which is set to increase sharply as this technique develops. However, these digestates are currently difficult to valorize due to surface limitations or land-spreading bans.
\nHydrothermal gasification would then increase the potential of methanization tenfold, by enabling additional gas production.
\nSeveral projects are underway in the United States, Japan and Europe; in particular in the Netherlands, the most advanced European country in the field, where one demonstrator has already opened and a second is due to follow in 2021.
\nIn France, LITEN (CEA) has been working for a number of years on projects involving the valorization of wet biomass, such as the Diesalg Project (production of bio-oil by hydrothermal liquefaction of microalgae) or the Enerlig Project (valorization of black liquor, the residue of paper pulp in the paper industry).
\nConstruction of the world's first catalytic hydrothermal gasification pilot (100 kg/h) began this year at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI, and will be operational in 2020 to evaluate the gasification performance of different types of liquid waste (e.g. digested sludge, undigested sludge).
\nDevelopers expect the technology to reach industrial scale by 2023/2025.
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