Project's aims

The objectives of the project are:

• reducing contribution to Greenhouse Effect from landfill gas emissions:

landfill gas is composed mainly by methane and carbon dioxide; when landfill gas is burnt methane is converted to carbon dioxide, while the carbon dioxide originally present is emitted into the atmosphere; actually this carbon dioxide is of biogenic origin, so its emission does not contribute to the Greenhouse Effect balance; however if carbon dioxide is capture from the landfill gas and stored, it is possible to obtain an additional subtraction (negative emissions) of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, reducing the overall Greenhouse Effect balance; the same concept can be applied to the case of biogas from anaerobic digestion or even from 2nd generation biogas;

• promoting the use of landfill gas and biogas as substitutes of natural gas through up- grading processes:

landfill gas and biogas from anaerobic digestion can be processed to up-grade their quality, mainly by removing the carbon dioxide and increasing the methane content; after the up- grading process the gases can be used as substitutes of natural gas, with the benefits of being a renewable energy source and contributing to reduce the dependency from natural gas importations;

• demonstrate the process feasibility of innovative methods for landfill gas quality up- grading through carbon dioxide capture and storage with low process costs:
  

landfill gas or biogas up-grading processes exist throughout Europe; the existing methods are based on carbon dioxide separation followed by the final re-emission into the atmosphere (i.e. not accompanied by capture and storage); innovative methods for carbon dioxide capture and storage will be demonstrated in terms of their capability to reach the required carbon dioxide removal efficiency; the proposed innovative methods are characterised by relatively low process costs, in order to make economically attractive the up-grading process;

• demonstrate the technical, economic and environmental feasibility of the methods:
  

the innovative carbon dioxide capture and storage methods will be assessed from a technical point of view, to demonstrate the technical possibility of implementing them on full scale; from environmental point of view, to demonstrate their effective benefits in terms of environmental impacts according to a Life Cycle Assessment approach; from an economic point of view, to demonstrate their cost competitiveness/comparability with respect to other existing methods;

• disseminate the results of the project in order to widespread the knowledge about the demonstrated methods and to support their reproducibility.