| TOKYO-- Sapporo
Breweries Ltd., in partnership with Shimadzu Corp. and Hiroshima University,
has developed the world's first technology that can efficiently generate
hydrogen and methane from bread waste. Their research group has announced
that their small-scale experimental system had run successfully for over
six months. The National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences, an independent
administrative institute in Japan commissioned and sponsored this research.
Desulfurization of biogas that contains
corrosive sulfur has been a major challenge in attempting to use biogas
in fuel cells. The new system, however, can separately generate sulfur-free
biohydrogen and methane by controlling the fermentation process.
The experiment successfully decomposed
and dissolved about 80 percent of bread waste within only a quarter of
the conventional processing time. Furthermore, in terms of calorific value
calculated on the basis of the amount of gas collected, the newly developed
technology produced over 10 percent more biogas compared to the existing
method of producing methane alone through fermentation.
The research group is now working
on further development of the system towards practical application, and
launched a pilot-scale experiment in mid-October 2004. Application of the
technology may extend to other raw materials such as agricultural and forestry
wastes, and expectations are high that it can be used in a variety of industrial
fields in future.
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