BRUSSELS, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- An European Union (EU)-funded project seeks to produce graphitic carbon -- graphite -- and green hydrogen from biogas, said the European Commission on Thursday.
The PlasCarb project intends to develop innovative technologies and techniques for recycling water, nutrients and by-products along the food supply chain -- from horticulture to processing and on to shop shelves.
These advances add up to big savings for producers and manufacturers, increase competitiveness, and benefit the environment, said a Commission statement.
"The objective of PlasCarb is twofold," said project coordinator Neville Slack from the Centre for Process Innovation in Britain. "One objective is to see how we could utilize food waste instead of sending it to landfill or just putting it through an anaerobic digester to generate electricity. The second is looking at potentially critical outputs."
The biogas is generated from food waste, which is broken down in an anaerobic digester. The aim is then to split this gas into its two main components -- methane and carbon dioxide -- using a filtration process developed by the project, explained Slack.
The methane, once isolated, is injected into the plasma reactor, where it is heated using low-energy microwave technology until the molecules come apart, forming graphitic carbon and hydrogen.
One of the challenges, said Slack, lies in ensuring that the process delivers carbon in the desired form. Another arises from the complexity of separating the two substances. Further steps are required to divide the two and eliminate impurities.
In addition, the PlasCarb partners are planning to develop a plant that will integrate the whole process, from the production of biogas to the isolation and purification of graphitic carbon and hydrogen.
By the time the project ends in November 2016, the partners hope to have operated this plant for at least one month, processing over 150 tonnes of food waste into more than 25,000 cubic meters of biogas.
Moreover, whether the approach would be profitable is another question the partners intend to address.
