“MHP Eco Energy and UABIO together with British companies will improve algae biomethane production

The project “Production of advanced biomethane from microalgae grown on the digestate of biogas plants” by MHP Eco Energy and the Bioenergy Association of Ukraine won the “Innovate Ukraine – Support for Energy Recovery of Ukraine” competition.

The project will be implemented by a consortium of Ukrainian and UK companies:

• University of Manchester (UK, administrative leader, technological leader);
• ALGAECYTES LIMITED (UK, commercial partner);
• MHP Eco Energy PJSC (Ukraine, commercial partner);
• Bioenergy Association of Ukraine (scientific partner).

About the project

Project objectives:

• A new economical and energy-efficient process for cultivating microalgae in the digestate of biogas plants.
• A new economical and energy-efficient process for the production of biomethane from microalgae using anaerobic digestion (AD).

The project will combine experiments from the laboratory to the pilot scale, including the cultivation of microalgae in flat panel and tubular photobioreactors. New methods of modeling microalgae cultivation and anaerobic digestion will also be developed for process optimization and feasibility analysis.

The idea of the work is based on the hypothesis that it is possible to effectively cultivate microalgae in the digestate of biogas plants, which contains macro- and microelements necessary for microalgae growth, with the addition of carbon gas obtained from biogas enrichment to biomethane, and further conversion of the collected microalgae into biogas and biomethane. This will allow the photosynthesis process to achieve a more complete conversion of organic carbon contained in the raw materials for biogas production into a gaseous energy carrier – methane.

About Innovate Ukraine

Innovate Ukraine is funded by UK International Development and organized by the British Embassy in Kyiv.

As a result of this competition, 13 innovative green energy projects in Ukraine were selected to be supported by the UK with an investment of £16 million. The projects will be implemented over two years.

The program involves cooperation between more than 50 British and Ukrainian organizations and will attract an additional £5 million from the private sector.

On May 2, the Innovate Ukraine program was officially launched with the announcement of the winning projects with the participation of Foreign Secretary David Cameron, who personally arrived in Kyiv, and Minister of Energy of Ukraine Herman Halushchenko.

This is not the only Innovate Ukraine winning project. Earlier, we wrote about another winner, the project “Development of a Business Model for Biomethane Production in Ukraine.” It will be implemented over two years by a consortium of companies from Ukraine and the UK: Marriott Davies Yapp LLP (UK), Rika Biofuel Developments LTD (UK), Regenerative Agriculture (Ukraine), SEC Biomass (Ukraine) and the Bioenergy Association of Ukraine.