
Feeding biogas and wood gas into the natural gas grid by upgrading or Power-to-Gas
This research area focuses on improving the upgrading of biogas from anaerobic digestion and wood gasifiers into grid-quality biomethane, including Power-to-Gas technologies. Key areas of work include Power-to-Gas applications, which allow using CO2 from biogas in combination with hydrogen to produce biomethane.
Description of Research Area
In the research area “biomethane” existing and improved technologies for biomethane production are compared. The technology monitoring covers all relevant national and international biomethane projects and will be updated once a year. The following challenges are adressed:
- Identification and evaluation of the most promising technologies and operation conditions for industrial applications of Power-to-Gas in biogas/waste water treatment plants
- Development and optimization of the design of catalytic and biological methanation process/reactors for industrial Power-to-Gas applications using biomass as carbon source
- Scaling-up catalytic fluidized bed methanation processes to industrial scale
- Enabling cost- and energy efficient gas cleaning processes, at high or low temperatures, for removal of relevant contaminants
- Use of techno-economic assessments to optimize wood-to-SNG plants with optional Power-to-Gas application
- Support of pilot and demonstration projects by knowledge transfer during engineering phase and measurement/diagnostics campaigns during the commissioning
Research Partners

Serge Biollaz
Leader of the SCCER BIOSWEET research area “biomethane” and head of the Thermochemical Processes (TCP) group at the Paul Scherrer Institut

Urs Baier
Leader of the research area “biogas” in the SCCER BIOSWEET and head of the Environmental Biotechnology Group at Zurich University of Applied Sciences

Roger Röthlisberger
Professor at the Institute of Thermal Engineering of the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland

Christian Ludwig
Head of the Chemical Processes and Materials group at the Paul Scherrer Institut and Adjunct Professor at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne

Jan Van herle
Lecturer in the Industrial Energy Systems Laboratory at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne. Large Expertise in the field Solid Oxide Fuel Cells
Outreach Material
Production of biomethane from dry biomass
This information is updated on a regular base. Please check back later.