Bion’s CNG from livestock waste

Bion Environmental Technologies, Inc., a provider of advanced livestock waste treatment technology, announced that over the past three years, Bion has modified its technology platform to enable the capture of ammonia and its conversion into commercial products, rather than its destruction. This has enabled the production of renewable natural gas from the volatile solids in the waste stream, while maintaining the desired nutrient reductions.

Bion estimates the potential byproduct revenues from renewable energy (and associated carbon reduction credits) and fertiliser products at Kreider Farms Phase 2 (at full operation), based on present market prices, to be in the range of US$15 - US$20 million.

By capturing the ammonia, Bion not only prevents its impacts to the environment as before, but is now able to recover and process substantially more of the nitrogen in the manure stream into a stabilised value added product. Bion filed a patent on this process that recovers a nitrogen-rich, natural, non-synthetic fertiliser in September 2015. Bion is preparing a filing with the Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI) for certification for use in organic production.

The technology platform can now utilise anaerobic digestion to produce methane, which can then be cleaned and injected into existing pipelines, resulting in a clean renewable compressed natural gas. The gas can then be delivered anywhere in the country for use as a vehicle fuel, such as California, where it would qualify for significantly more renewable energy credits. Patent protection for the third generation technology platform was filed in September 2014.

Craig Scott, Bion's Director of Communications, said, "As stated previously, we are optimistic that the Pennsylvania legislature will ultimately do what is best for the environment and its taxpayers and legislate a competitive bidding strategy to lower costs and achieve compliance. Further, we are also optimistic that other states with the same problem will follow the federal government's lead in supporting private sector solutions, giving their taxpayers an alternative to today's high cost low value government solutions.

Scott continued, "regardless, it is apparent that the 'separate and aggregate strategy' we began a few years ago in order to better utilise all the assets in the waste stream is succeeding. With sufficient scale, we have already reduced our dependence on nutrient credits to approximately half of total project revenues, just with recovery of renewable energy and nitrogen by-products."

Adapted from press release by Francesca Brindle

Read the article online at: https://www.hydrocarbonengineering.com/clean-fuels/28012016/bion-livestock-waste-ammonia-to-cng-methane-technology-2300/