Measurements of Methane Emissions from a Biofertilizer Storage Tank Using Ground-Based Hyperspectral Imaging and Flux Chambers.

Open storages of organic material represent potentially large sources of the greenhouse gas methane (CH4), an emissions source that will likely become more common as a part of societal efforts toward sustainability. Hence, monitoring and minimizing CH4 emissions from such facilities are key, but effective assessment of emissions without disturbing the flux is challenging. We demonstrate the capacity of using a novel high-resolution hyperspectral camera to perform sensitive CH4 flux assessments at such facilities, using as a test case a biofertilizer storage tank for residual material from a biogas plant. The camera and simultaneous conventional flux chamber measurements showed emissions of 6.0 ± 1.3 and 13 ± 5.7 kg of CH4 h-1, respectively. The camera measurements covered the whole tank surface of 1104 m2, and the chamber results were extrapolated from measurements over 5 m2. This corresponds to 0.7-1.4% of the total CH4 production at the biogas plant (1330 N m3 h-1 corresponding to 950 kg h-1). The camera could assess the entire tank emission in minutes without disturbing normal operations at the plant and revealed additional unknown emissions from the inlet to the tank (17 g of CH4 h-1) and during the loading of the biofertilizer into trucks (3.1 kg of CH4 h-1 during loading events). This study illustrates the importance of adequate measurement capacity to map methane fluxes and to verify that methane emission mitigation efforts are effective. Given the high methane emissions observed, it is important to reduce methane emissions from open storage of organic material, for example by improved digestion in the biogas reactor, precooling of sludge before storage, or building gastight storage tanks with sealed covers. We conclude that hyperspectral, ground-based remote sensing is a promising approach for greenhouse gas monitoring and mitigation.

Electronic Nose for Improved Environmental Methane Monitoring.

Reducing emissions of the key greenhouse gas methane (CH4) is increasingly highlighted as being important to mitigate climate change. Effective emission reductions require cost-effective ways to measure CH4 to detect sources and verify that mitigation efforts work. We present here a novel approach to measure methane at atmospheric concentrations by means of a low-cost electronic nose strategy where the readings of a few sensors are combined, leading to errors down to 33 ppb and coefficients of determination, R2, up to 0.91 for in situ measurements. Data from methane, temperature, humidity, and atmospheric pressure sensors were used in customized machine learning models to account for environmental cross-effects and quantify methane in the ppm-ppb range both in indoor and outdoor conditions. The electronic nose strategy was confirmed to be versatile with improved accuracy when more reference data were supplied to the quantification model. Our results pave the way toward the use of networks of low-cost sensor systems for the monitoring of greenhouse gases.

Ground-based remote sensing of CH4 and N2O fluxes from a wastewater treatment plant and nearby biogas production with discoveries of unexpected sources.

This study is an attempt to assess CH4 and N2O emissions from all the treatment steps of a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) in Sweden, serving 145 000 persons, and an adjacent biogas production facility. We have used novel mid-IR ground-based remote sensing with a hyperspectral camera to visualize and quantify the emissions on 21 days during a year, with resulting yearly fluxes of 90.4 ± 4.3 tonne CH4/yr and 10.9 ± 1.3 tonne N2O/yr for the entire plant. The most highly emitting CH4 source was found to be sludge storage, which is seldom included in literature as in-situ methods are not suitable for measuring emissions extended over large surfaces, still contributing 90 % to the total CH4 emission in our case. The dominating N2O source was found to be a Stable High rate Ammonia Removal Over Nitrite reactor, contributing 89 % to the total N2O emissions. We also discovered several unexpected CH4 sources. Incomplete flaring of CH4 gave fluxes of at least 30 kg CH4/min, corresponding to plume concentrations of 2.5 %. Such highly episodic fluxes could double the plant-wide yearly emissions if they occur 2 days per year. From a distance of 250 m we found a leak in the biogas production facility, corresponding to 1.1 % of the CH4 produced, and that loading of organic material onto trucks from a biofertilizer storage tank contributed with high emissions during loading events. These results indicate that WWTP emissions globally may have been grossly underestimated and that it is essential to have effective methods that can measure all types of fluxes, and discover new potential sources, in order to make adequate priorities and to take effective actions to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from WWTPs.