Bad Biogas

Establishment of analysis method for methane detection by gas chromatography

An analysis of methane levels in biogas determined whether the levels detected by gas chromatography in the process of food waste fermentation were safe. As methane has greenhouse effects twenty-five times stronger than those of carbon, the analysis is vital to determine the safety of basic food fermentation. First, a sample of biogas was collected from a digestion reactor. After analyzing this substance, only one peak that belonged to methane appeared in the chromatogram as the only other substance was air. According to a table created by the researchers, methane content rose slightly to 12.75% in the initial fermentation phase before shooting to 63.03% in the next phase and settling to 50.76% in the last phase. Since the working curve range unfortunately only went up to 44%, the method of collection used was not acceptable for determining methane levels in biogas.

            Although this discovery was useful to the researcher’s general goals in terms of research skills and experimentation, it would have been more helpful for them to realize the small range of the working curve before spending time and resources on an experiment where the outcome wasn’t very helpful. Since the scope of the experiment didn’t allow for the amount of methane present, the method of gas chromatography used wasn’t practical.

            Though the levels of methane in the experiment were too high for effective measurement, it can be concluded that the amount of methane in biogas are too high to be safe. The amount of methane was higher than expected since the percentages were out of range, so methane levels of biogas are surely too much. Although the curve wasn’t applicable, now the researchers know that they should use a different system when performing the same research. Useful facts and lessons were still gained from this experiment performed by students.