Lakes Could be ‘Tapped’ for an Environmentally Friendly Biofuel

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May 21, 2021

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by Robert Lea (AZO CleanTech) New research suggests that a carbon-neutral biofuel could be created from methane extracted from lakes. — … A team of environmental scientists from the University of Basel, Switzerland, suggest that methane stored in lakes could be tapped, converted to methanol, and used as fuel.

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The key to the team’s breakthrough is a microporous membrane constructed from polymeric materials that can sift methane from lake water, even when it exists in low concentrations.

Alongside Professor Moritz Lehmann, head of the biogeochemistry research group at Basel, Maciej Bartosiewicz, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of Basel, is the author of a paper documenting the team’s research published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

As well as providing a sustainable fuel, the extraction of methane could help prevent this greenhouse gas — which has about 25 times the impact of carbon dioxide on warming — from leaking to the atmosphere. Thus, helping fight climate change on two fronts.

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Lake Kivu — one of the African great lakes located between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda — has been tapped for methane for the past five years. The gas has been extracted from depths of up to 260 meters in the body of water and converted directly to an energy source.

“Methane occurs in high concentrations in large quantities on the lake bed there,” explains Bartosiewicz. “The methane concentration is about 100 times higher than in ordinary lakes.”

Until now it was believed that this process would not be viable in lakes that possess a lower concentration of methane than Lake Kivu. That’s where the Basel team comes in.

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“Removing excess carbon could even help curb excessive phytoplankton bloom formation and reduce natural greenhouse gas emissions from lakes. More work is needed before any practical implementation of this initial theoretical idea,” concludes Bartosiewicz. “This concept could one day make an important contribution to reaching our climate goals.” READ MORE

Bartosiewicz. M., Rzepka. P., Lehmann. M. F., [2021], ‘Tapping Freshwaters for Methane and Energy,’ Environmental Science & Technology, https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.0c06210

‘Overview of Greenhouse Gases: Methane,’ EPA, https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases

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