Development of a bioreactor for the conversion of biogas into valuable products

The aim of the project is to synthesize industrial and pharmaceutical products with aerobic methanotrophic organisms based on a new reactor concept

When 2010 world market prices for carbon obtained from retail sugar (0.72 Euro per kilogram) is compared with carbon derived from natural gas (0.19 Euro per kilogram), methane produced by biogas plants appears to be a cheap alternative carbon source for a variety of industrial and pharmaceuticals products. Moreover, methane can be transported via the existing natural gas grid.

By using methane as a substrate for microorganisms, difficulties arise in the fermentation process due to the formation of explosive gas mixtures and substrate limitation caused by the poor water solubility of methane. This requires the development of an aerated membrane reactor, which prevents the generation of potentially explosive bubbles inside the reactor.

For this purpose different membranes will be tested for their applicability. The main parameters will be the temperature and gas solubility at different pressure. The gases will be controlled and measured by a real-time online-mass spectrometry. This procedure will provide data for a computer-aided simulation to optimize the design of the membrane reactor.

Additionally a screening of aerobic methanotrophic microorganisms will be carried out focused on the key enzyme methanmonooxygenase to increase metabolization rates.