Process for purifying energetic gases such as biogas and natural gas

Abstract

A process is disclosed for purifying a gas stream containing a contaminant gas and an energetic gas. The process comprises the steps of: a) providing a bioreactor comprising:—a reaction chamber filled with a solvent containing a biocatalyst capable of catalyzing a transformation reaction of said contaminant gas dissolved in the solvent into ions. The process further comprises the step of b) extracting the contaminant gas from the gas stream, which extraction comprises feeding the gas stream in the reaction chamber and thereby allowing the contaminant gas to dissolve and transform into ions, yielding said energetic gas free of said contaminant gas and leaving a spent solvent containing said ions in solution. Then, in step c) the energetic gas and the spent solvent obtained in step b) are separately released from the reaction chamber. The process further comprises the steps of d) removing the ions from the spent solvent to recycle the solvent; and e) feeding the recycled solvent of step e) in the reaction chamber. This process can advantageously be used to purify biogas and natural gas which contain methane as the energetic gas and carbon dioxide as the contaminant gas.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.