Q Power and St1 launch pilot project to produce biomethane from biorefinery carbon dioxide
Type of post: NEWS IN BRIEF.
St1 and Q
Power (renewable energy start-up) have launched a joint project for developing
a novel way of making synthetic biomethane from carbon dioxide.
Press release: “Q
Power and St1 piloting synthetic fuel production from biorefinery carbon
dioxide”, 27/8/2019.
Figure 1. Q Power’s methanisation unit at St1’s
Etanolix® biorefinery in Vantaa
Q Power has developed a patented, microbe-based
renewable energy storage method. In the pilot project, its biological
methanation process utilises the carbon dioxide recovered from the production
of waste-based ethanol at a St1’s biorefinery. The technology allows producing
biomethane from hydrogen and carbon dioxide and it was developed by utilising
methanogenic archaea isolated from a boreal peat.
The pilot project will be implemented at St1’s
Etanolix® biorefinery in Vantaa, where advanced ethanol is produced from bakery
waste for use as fuel. Q Power’s methanisation unit has been integrated with
the biorefinery. The pilot phase in Vantaa will last three months, during which
the concept will be tested and its technical and economic scalability specified.
A refuelling station has also been connected with the pilot unit, from which
the gas vehicles participating in the pilot are directly filled with biomethane
produced in the process.
In October 2018, St1 and VTT opened a similar pilot
plant under the umbrella of a two-year project called Bioeconomy+. The facility
was located at St1's Etanolix plant in Jokioinen (Finland).
