The market for biogas production has been increasing every year all over the world. The use of biogas as an energy vector is accomplished through the most diverse applications, such as direct burning (thermal energy), internal combustion engines, and fuel cells. Besides direct applications, biogas can be used as a raw material for producing high added-value products, such as molecular hydrogen and renewable hydrocarbons, through a new enterprise concept, the biorefineries. Purity and quality control are determinant factors that enable the decision-making regarding the end use of biogas. Physical, chemical, and biological methods can be used in biogas upgrading processes as well as a combination of different techniques. This review aims to deepen the knowledge about relevant technologies for biogas purification. It also addresses the most efficient and feasible methods, challenges to be overcome, and main demands for future studies. Therefore, the presentation, in a detailed way, of the synergistic effects caused by components contained in natural biogas and the combinatorial methods for removing these contaminants, differentiates this from other works that approach only the purification techniques but do not point out their problems and causes more comprehensively. Thus, studies related to the combined effects of contaminants would be interesting in future works.

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Porous carbon materials such as activated carbons are widely used industrially for the purposes of purification, decolourization, deodorization, and gas storage, among others. Routes for the synthesis of these materials employing templates have increasingly attracted attention due to the ease of manipulating the characteristics of the final product. In the present work, a simple synthesis method was applied for the production of highly porous carbon materials using commercial sugar as the carbon source, Aerosil silica as a template, and deionized water. The synthesis procedure was as follows: (I) Gel formation; (II) carbonization of the gels; (III) removal of the silica template; (IV) activation. The materials were characterized by N2 and CO2 physisorption, Raman spectroscopy, X‐ray diffraction, Fourier‐transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy, and thermogravimetric analysis. The aging time had an important influence on the specific area and porosity of the material, with physisorption analysis revealing a high specific area and pore volume. The activation procedures further contributed to significantly increasing the specific area (up to 1158 m2 g−1) and pore volume (up to 1.65 cm3 g−1). The X‐ray diffractograms and Raman spectra identified the formation of semi‐crystalline structures in the material, with the presence of a random distribution of graphite and graphene oxide, in addition to amorphous carbon. FTIR analysis showed the presence of bands corresponding to aromatic groups. The results demonstrated that it was possible to obtain materials with excellent potential for use in different industrial sectors using simple raw materials and a technique that is easy to reproduce.