Bioenergy from organic residual materials

CREM works closely with partners from business, industry and non-academic research institutions. CREM has an excellently equipped pilot plant with various test systems for conducting studies on biochemical degradation under anaerobic and aerobic environmental conditions. In addition, the institute has a very well-equipped gas, water, and solids laboratory to perform extensive analyses to evaluate biochemical degradation processes.

Current research activities include in-situ biomethanation and evaluation of its potential to produce high quality methane for natural gas infrastructure, identification of operational constraints, and development of optimal operating parameters for a suitable strategy for flexible and efficient H₂ biomethanation. This also includes the implementation of artificial intelligence in the optimization of the in-situ biomethanation process. This will allow consistent and optimal biogas production with high methane yield without compromising the stabilization of the digester.

In addition, CREM is working on the integration of predictive operations in biogas plants through a possible bridge between the classical Lean Six Sigma methodology based on the Define-Measure-Analysis-Improve-Control (DMAIC) cycle and the modern Machine Learning algorithms. To this end, data from laboratory experiments and industrial scale experiments were used to provide a blueprint for a general approach. Subsequently, a case study is conducted with another industrial scale biogas plant to validate the developed methodology for the integration of predictive models in biogas technologies.