New camera technology spots hidden methane leaks from biofertilizer tanks
Researchers have demonstrated that hyperspectral imaging can detect methane emissions from organic waste storage in minutes without disrupting operations—a breakthrough for facilities scaling up biogas production. The findings suggest that 1-2% of biogas plant output may be lost through storage leakage, a significant oversight in sustainability calculations that operators and regulators now need to address.
Originaltitel: Measurements of Methane Emissions from a Biofertilizer Storage Tank Using Ground-Based Hyperspectral Imaging and Flux Chambers
<p>Open storages of organic material represent potentially large sources of the greenhouse gas methane (CH4), an emissions source that will likely become more common as a part of societal efforts toward sustainability. Hence, monitoring and minimizing CH4 emissions from such facilities are key, but effective assessment of emissions without disturbing the flux is challenging. We demonstrate the capacity of using a novel high-resolution hyperspectral camera to perform sensitive CH4 flux assessments at such facilities, using as a test case a biofertilizer storage tank for residual material from a biogas plant. The camera and simultaneous conventional flux chamber measurements showed emissions of 6.0 +/- 1.3 and 13 +/- 5.7 kg of CH4 h-1, respectively. The camera measurements covered the whole tank surface of 1104 m2, and the chamber results were extrapolated from measurements over 5 m2. This corresponds to 0.7-1.4% of the total CH4 production at the biogas plant (1330 N m3 h-1 corresponding to 950 kg h(-1)). The camera could assess the entire tank emission in minutes without disturbing normal operations at the plant and revealed additional unknown emissions from the inlet to the tank (17 g of CH4 h(-1)) and during the loading of the biofertilizer into trucks (3.1 kg of CH4 h(-1) during loading events). This study illustrates the importance of adequate measurement capacity to map methane fluxes and to verify that methane emission mitigation efforts are effective. Given the high methane emissions observed, it is important to reduce methane emissions from open storage of organic material, for example by improved digestion in the biogas reactor, precooling of sludge before storage, or building gastight storage tanks with sealed covers. We conclude that hyperspectral, ground-based remote sensing is a promising approach for greenhouse gas monitoring and mitigation.</p>