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Microbial Gas

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  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Petroleum Geoscience

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series ((EESS))

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Synonyms

Bacterial gas; Biogenic gas

Definition

Microbial gas (or as often incorrectly termed “bacterial gas” or “biogenic gas”) represents the terminal stage of organic matter decomposition. The term bacterial gas is not considered correct because methanogens are Archaea and not bacteria (Woese and Fox 1977). The term biogenic is problematic because both microbial or thermogenic gases have an organic or biologic source. Methanogenesis is a strictly anaerobic process (Zeikus 1977) and is accomplished by more than 80 species of Archaea (Liu and Whitman 2008) through multiple processes, but is commonly represented by either CO2 reduction or acetate fermentation:

CO2 + 4H2 → CH4 + 2H2O (CO2 reduction)

CH3COOH → CH4 + CO2 (acetate reduction)

Methanogens are incapable of metabolizing larger molecules such as cellulose, polysaccharides, and proteins. The methanogens utilize the decomposition products of other microbial processes including denitrification, manganese, iron, and sulfate...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Subsurface Department, Chevron Technical Center, Houston, TX, USA

    Barry Jay Katz

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  1. Barry Jay Katz
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Correspondence to Barry Jay Katz .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Energy and Geoscience Institute, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

    Rasoul Sorkhabi

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Katz, B.J. (2020). Microbial Gas. In: Sorkhabi, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Petroleum Geoscience. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02330-4_91-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02330-4_91-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-02330-4

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