Energies: Trifyl is engaged in biogas recovery

Launched in 2021 with the financial support of the Occitanie Pyrénées-Méditerranée region, DéMétha is an innovative project for the recovery of biogas produced by methanisation. It brings together the Joint Union for the treatment and recovery of domestic waste Trifyl but also the Enosis company, the laboratory of the Biotechnology Institute of Toulouse (TBI) and Teréga.

Its goal is to develop a new biogas recovery solution to increase the amount of methane fed into the natural gas grid without emitting CO2 and without mobilizing more biomass.

Methanation differs from the methanation process. By reacting CO2 with hydrogen to form methane, it allows the entire flow of biogas to be injected into the natural gas grid.

DéMétha’s biological methanation process is based on a biotechnology patented by Enosis and TBI after a first successful development phase in the laboratory. Now is the time for the semi-industrial demonstrator installed on the “Solida” research platform in Bélesta-en-Lauragais (Haute-Garonne). There, the performance of this technology will be tested to see if, as in the laboratory, it allows to obtain a high quality gas compatible with the introduction into the network. Another strength of this newly developed technique is its resilience to the impurities contained in the biogas. This limits the need for gas pre-treatment and therefore CO2 emissions.

The industrial demonstrator will enter service in 2024

“DéMétha makes it possible to achieve a change of scale from laboratory work and to operate the process under industrial conditions with raw biogas,” says Trifyl.

DéMétha aims to validate the quality of the produced methane and the performance of the biological methanation process in a real environment. The waste treatment consortium based in Labessière-Candeil is studying the implementation of an industrial demonstrator within the new selection and recovery plant. It is expected to enter service in 2024.

“The goal here is also to increase methane production from domestic waste methanization,” says Trifyl. And if the producer is undertaking this type of project, it is because the methanation sector could represent a production of 36 TWh/year by 2050 according to the different scenarios modeled by ADEME, or about 10% of the current natural gas consumption.