Demand for Geotech biogas analysers increases due to growing AD requirements

Following a recent trip to Asia, Geotech reports an increase in demand and usage of portable biogas analysers within the Asian AD market.  For Geotech this means a heightened interest in their portable biogas analyser – the BIOGAS 5000 which is used across a range of applications worldwide. 

Geotech has learnt that increased efficiency of processing bulk crops such as sugar and palm oil in Asia, as well as the attractiveness of rates paid for power generated from waste, have driven demand for reliable monitoring of biogas composition.  Geotech reports record sales into Asia, particularly China and Korea, as well as unprecedented demand in USA and Europe, particularly France, Italy and Czech Republic.

Geotech’s home market in the UK also continues to show steady development, with a number of now well-established AD operators requiring robust and accurate biogas monitoring, primarily in municipal waste management and waste water processing.

While Geotech’s GA2000 and now the GA5000 have provided the benchmark for landfill gas compliance monitoring for decades, the simpler BIOGAS 5000 is also popular on landfill sites where requirements to record large numbers of borehole gas readings are less demanding.

The growing trend towards biogas upgrading and use of compressed gas as a transport fuel is also driving demand for biogas monitoring, particularly the static systems which post regular gas readings to a site’s control system and may be linked to alarms which protect expensive equipment such as combined heat and power engines or de-sulphurisation equipment.

“We are seeing growing demand for monitoring of H2S, either at very low levels to check that H2S is being effectively removed from the biogas stream, or at higher levels in raw biogas”, says Geotech’s Commercial Manager, Amanda Randle.  “Clearly there are a number of growing biogas monitoring sectors, but overall we attribute our increase in analyser sales to our widespread network of distributors who provide local advice and support, backed up by our UK team.”

During a recent support visit to China and Thailand by Geotech’s team, biogas analysers were being used for process control as well as identifying leakage of air into the system.  Whilst methane yield from biogas is the key parameter measured, oxygen levels can be checked to find air leaks and also to protect engines.  Monitoring is also required to help identify AD processes where there is scope to improve the methane yield and Geotech’s equipment is also used to monitor aerobic digestion.

Research into biogas generation and use is widespread and Geotech has developed a number of features in its portable analysers to help researchers, including logging of readings, for example overnight, and also capturing an adequate gas sample from a small scale experiment. Click here for further information.