Supercharged trash gas could produce more green energy – Futurity

The researchers conducted the first chemical analysis of how siloxanes affect biogas. They found that siloxanes increase the reactivity of biogas, leading to faster ignition in engines and the release of more energy. But the siloxanes in the biogas can damage those engines—typically power-generating gas turbines and reciprocating piston engines.

“Siloxanes are highly ignitable,” says Margaret Wooldridge, professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Dow Sustainability Fellows Program at the University of Michigan. “They change the chemistry of biogas like crazy. The stuff is like rocket fuel, literally—crazy-reactive.”

The siloxanes essentially change the biogas’s “flame speed,” which is a measure of how quickly a fuel combusts and drives a turbine or piston.

Biogas is composed mainly of methane. There’s methane gas in nature but it’s also produced when organic material decomposes in landfills, along with hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and other hydrocarbons. Methane is the main component of natural gas and biogas, making both valuable sources of fuel and energy that are cleaner than coal.