In the industrial sector using anaerobic digestion to create biogas is increasingly recognized as a valuable method to utilize waste streams to create renewable energy.
Glass-Fused-to-Steel tanks are utilized for mesophilic digesters, thermophilic digesters, pasteurizing digesters and enhanced enzymic hydrolysis (EEH) digesters amongst various other processes and applications. Almost any organic waste can be digested, opportunities have developed to utilize food processing waste, domestic waste and restaurant waste. Increasingly combinations of waste streams are being processed along with co-digestion of municipal sludge effluent and farm waste such as animal slurry to generate “green” renewable energy. Biogas produced can be cleaned and introduced directly into the grid or converted into electricity with generators using combined heat and power engines (CHP). This also gives the opportunity to generate heat energy in the form of hot water. At the end of the process the digested material can be considered for use as fertilizer, which increases the potential revenue streams. Modular design allows the flexibility to accommodate various aspect ratios, process pressures and temperatures to suit a variety of AD processes, designs and applications as specified by your process designer. Glass-Fused-to-Steel is not only utilized for the tank walls but also in the roofs on tanks such as digesters. This gives a high degree of protection of Glass-Fused-to-Steel throughout a digester, especially in the highly aggressive gaseous zone. These roofs are structurally designed to allow for local environmental loading and can also support centrally mounted mixer systems. Additionally, Glass-Fused-to-Steel tanks can also be used for biogas storage by incorporation of double membrane covers.