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Bioconversion of Waste Conversion Gases to Liquid Fuels: Challenges and Opportunities

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Waste Valorisation and Recycling

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Abstract

Increasing emphasis towards biomethanation of food wastes, methane recovery from landfills are creating a large stock of methane which is inefficiently being converted to electricity in a low recovery mode. Conversion to methanol would instead substitute a high-value fossil fuel, increase capital recovery. Methanol is considered as one of key biofuel alternatives with high octane number, good storability and potential to be used in fuel cells. Commercially viable biological conversion of methane to methanol has still eluded technologists despite generation of methane from biomass via anaerobic digestion and thermochemical conversion to methanol. This paper examines challenges and opportunities for methane from biomethanation of MSW to be converted to methanol by the microbiological route with the help of methanotrophs. The microbiology and biochemistry of the process dictate that methane-oxidizing capability of methanotrophs need to be interrupted, chemically, biochemically or genetically and process optimized to enhance production of methanol, which is an intermediate in the methane oxidation process. The objective of this study was to amalgamate the knowledge of microbiology such as their isolation, metabolism and growth conditions along with the engineering challenges to mass produce methanol from methane. The current status and bottlenecks of this process are captured.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Sustainable Technologies (Formerly ASTRA), Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, India

    Aastha Paliwal, H. N. Chanakya & Himanshu Kumar Khuntia

Authors
  1. Aastha Paliwal
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  2. H. N. Chanakya
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  3. Himanshu Kumar Khuntia
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to H. N. Chanakya .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Jadavpur University, President, International Society of Waste Management, Air and Water (ISWMAW), Kolkata, West Bengal, India

    Sadhan Kumar Ghosh

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Paliwal, A., Chanakya, H.N., Khuntia, H.K. (2019). Bioconversion of Waste Conversion Gases to Liquid Fuels: Challenges and Opportunities. In: Ghosh, S. (eds) Waste Valorisation and Recycling. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2784-1_45

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