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US 12,435,347 B2Granted
Energy production with hyperthermophilic organisms
AssigneeHyperthermics AS
InventorsJan Remmereit, Michael Thomm
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present invention relates to the field of degradation with hyperthermophilic organisms, and in particular to the use of hyperthermophilic degradation to produce heat and energy rich components including hydrogen and ethanol from a biomass. In some embodiments, a biomass is fermented in the presence of hyperthermophilic organisms to produce heat. The heat is used to heat a liquid which is used directly in a heat pump or radiant heat or to produce electricity or drive a steam turbine. In some embodiments, acetate is utilized as a substrate to produce energy by methanogenesis.
Claims5
A process comprising:
- anaerobically degrading a biomass selected from the group consisting of sewage, agricultural waste products, brewery grain by-products, food waste, forestry waste, crops, grass, seaweed, plankton, algae, fish, fish waste, corn, potato waste, sugar cane waste, sugar beet waste, straw, paper waste, chicken manure, cow manure, hog manure, switchgrass and combinations thereof by fermentation in an enclosed bioreactor in the presence of a marine Thermotoga species at a NaCl concentration of less than 0.2%, a redox potential of from −125 to −850 mV, and a cell density of at least 1×109 cells/ml, then
- introducing a nondeoxygenated biomass into the degraded biomass in the enclosed bioreactor and fermenting the nondeoxygenated biomass to produce hydrogen and a slurry comprising biomass residue and acetate,
- pumping said slurry into a methane bioreactor to produce biogas in a second fermentation process, and
- removing the biogas from the methane bioreactor.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.