Bio Fuels : CO2 Liquefaction Plant for Pioneering Swiss Project

Hitachi Zosen Inova (HZI) has been awarded the contract to engineer and deliver a turnkey plant to liquefy carbon dioxide (CO2) naturally resulting from an organic digestion plant. The client is CO2 Energie AG, which in Nesselnbach (Canton Aargau) will take the CO2 generated in the treatment of organic waste to produce biogas and biomethane and prepare it for industrial applications. The Nesselnbach project marks an important step forward in HZI’s Renewable Gas business.

For the visionaries in Nesselnbach, this project has both environmental and economic advantages: The existing biogas plant at the site has until now produced biogas, which is upgraded into biomethane for feeding into the regional natural gas grid. The process involves separating the carbon dioxide in the biogas from the methane. In the future the new installation will capture and liquefy the CO2 from the gas upgrading process for use as product gas in various industrial applications, for example as technical welding gas, in gas extinguishing systems or for inertisation. The HZI liquefaction plant will have a processing capacity of 4,000 t/a CO2. In addition to the efficient utilisation of carbon dioxide, the project contributes to the substitution of fossil CO2.

HZI is developing the plant as a compact, container construction that will liquefy the high-purity product gas and inject it into storage tanks. Upgrading existing biogas plants with CO2 liquefaction is a pioneering project for plant operators that also pays off monetarily by serving other sectors of the economy, making it fully circular. HZI’s Renewable Gas division also provides biogas and gas upgrading technologies, making it a partner with a wealth of experience in all the work involved, including comprehensive expertise in the relevant interfaces – a key advantage when it comes to integrating equipment into the overall concept.