Low carbon renewable natural gas production from coalbeds and implications for carbon capture and storage

Abstract

Isotopic studies have shown that many of the world’s coalbed natural gas plays are secondary biogenic in origin, suggesting a potential for gas regeneration through enhanced microbial activities. The generation of biogas through biostimulation and bioaugmentation is limited to the bioavailability of coal-derived compounds and is considered carbon positive. Here we show that plant-derived carbohydrates can be used as alternative substrates for gas generation by the indigenous coal seam microorganisms. The results suggest that coalbeds can act as natural geobioreactors to produce low carbon renewable natural gas, which can be considered carbon neutral, or perhaps even carbon negative depending on the amount of carbon sequestered within the coal. In addition, coal bioavailability is no longer a limiting factor. This approach has the potential of bridging the gap between fossil fuels and renewable energy by utilizing existing coalbed natural gas infrastructure to produce low carbon renewable natural gas and reducing global warming.

Microbial Communities Involved in Methane Production from Coal Treated by Potassium Permanganate

“…The similar phenomenon was also reported by Ohtomo et al [25], where methanogens were obtained from batch-type cultivation, no methanogens, however, were activated during experiment in the reactor system. For bacterial communities, Proteobacteria was observed to be the predominant phylum with 51.48% of the sequence reads, which consistent with some previous findings related to methanogenic communities for coal biodegradation [22] (Figure 2B). Specifically, 33.83% of sequence reads were classified into Acidovorax which was the dominant genus detected.…”

“…Coal was first pulverized and washed using a 0.05M sterile phosphate buffer (pH 7.4) containing 0.2% Tween 80 as described previously [21,22] to elute the microorganisms attached to the surface of coal and eliminate any interference of heavy metals which might reduce the efficiency of DNA extraction. After washing, the solutions were filtered through a 0.22-μm membrane filter (Whatman, Japan).…”

“…The protocol of PCR, sequencing and data analysis were performed as described previously [21,22]. Briefly, the 16S r RNA variable region 4 (V4) were amplified using the universal primer sets 515F/806R (GTGCCAGCMGCCGCGGTAA/GGACTACHVGGGTWTCTAAT) which have been used for Illumina-based surveys to amplified bacterial and archaeal 16S r RNA genes [22].…”

A Processing Method to Increase Production of Biomethane from Lignite

“…Setup for experiments. According to the method of Huang et al [7], a basic culture solution, a trace element culture solution, and a vitamin solution were configured. The pH of the medium was adjusted to 7.0 ± 0.2 using sodium hydroxide.…”

Smart adsorbents for CO2 capture: Making strong adsorption sites respond to visible light

“…Methane (CH 4 ) is the active component of natural gas and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) is a predominant impurity. The coexistence of CO 2 is almost unavoidable regardless of the geographical origin, which not only reduces the calorific value of natural gas but also leads to the corrosion of equipment [6][7][8]. To remove CO 2 , amine scrubbing is currently employed in industry [9][10][11].…”