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US 12,759,919 B2Granted
Systems and methods for removal of methane from a methane containing digestate/fluids/substrates from methane producing systems
AssigneeAgro-Synergies LLC
InventorsJulie Sannar, James White, Jim Quan, Ronald Helland, John Woods
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present invention generally relates to systems and methods for the separation and removal of methane from an agricultural methane digestate, for example, agricultural waste. The systems and methods include an extraction system that exposes the methane digestate to agricultural commodities and a microbial additives resulting in products that can be recycled.
Claims17
A system for separating and removing methane from a digestate, the system comprising:
- a reactor capable of receiving the digestate, a sufficient amount of agricultural commodities provided as particulate thickening, complexing/chelating, binding agents, and a sufficient amount of microbial additives;
- and, at least one separator,
- wherein the reactor is configured for secondary microbial digestion, and during operation, methane is removed from the digestate by reacting the agricultural commodities and microbial additives with the digestate resulting in a demethanized digestate;
- the microbial additives comprise at least one source of aerobic microbes configured to bio-chemically prevent methane production in the reactor during the secondary microbial digestion by overpowering anaerobic methane producing microbes in the digestate, and the agricultural commodities provide a platform and/or a food source which the aerobic microbes utilize to biochemically react with the methane in the digestate;
- whereby, the at least one separator includes at least one screen capable of separating the demethanized digestate into demethanized digestate solids and demethanized digestate liquids.
2 more elements
A method for removing methane from a digestate, the method comprising the steps of:
- exposing the digestate to a sufficient amount of agricultural commodities provided as particulate thickening, complexing/chelating, binding agents, and a sufficient amount of microbial additives forming a reaction mixture, wherein the microbial additives comprise aerobic microbes added to bio-chemically prevent methane production during secondary microbial digestion;
- wherein the agricultural commodities provide a platform and/or a food source which microbes utilize to biochemically react with the methane in the digestate;
- aerating and circulating the reaction mixture to produce a demethanized digestate slurry;
- subjecting the demethanized digestate slurry to at least one screen having a plurality of screen openings to separate the demethanized digestate slurry into screened demethanized digestate liquids and screened demethanized digestate solids;
- filtering the screened demethanized digestate liquids that fall through the at least one screen to form filtered demethanized digestate liquids;
- transferring the filtered demethanized digestate liquids to storage;
- and,
- moving the screened demethanized digestate solids to a stacking area,
- wherein demethanized digestate storage is maintained in a manner that reduces methane re-generation by maintaining microbial suppression and/or by controlling oxygen and microbial activity in the stored liquids and/or solids.
6 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.