Purification of Biogas for Fuel Cells Navy SBIR FY2011.2 Sol No.: Navy SBIR FY2011.2 Topic No.: N112-160 Topic Title: Purification of Biogas for Fuel Cells Proposal No.: N112-160-0804 Firm: Altex Technologies Corporation 244 Sobrante Way Sunnyvale, California 94086 Contact: Ken Lux Phone: (408) 328-8306 Web Site: http://www.altextech.com Abstract: Altex Technologies and the Pennsylvania State University propose the BioPure-FC biogas purification system, which is designed to purify biogas from landiflls and wastewater-treatement plants to levels compatible with fuel-cell systems. PSU's novel sorbents combined with Altex's system-development expertise will enable the BioPure-FC system to reduce global warming potential and save fuel. Benefits: BioPure-FC will convert methane in biogas into CO2 and electricity, resulting in the emission of a carbon-containing species with significantly lower global warming potential. By utilizing biogas produced during normal day-to-day operations, it will utilize an existing waste stream to produce electricity. In addition to eliminating CH4 it also reduces the amount of fuel consumption for producing the electrical power. Under Phase II, this process will be demonstrated to show the full-scale feasibility with a fuel-cell system. Unused methane in the biogas produced by U.S landfills and wastewater-treatment plants during 2009, if converted to electricity at 40% efficiency in a fuel-cell system, would produce 6800MW of electrical-generating capacity. This amounts to a biogas purification market that is very significant. If only 1% of the market is penetrated, this would be a savings of almost 1.4 million tons of CO2 equivalent/yr. For military applications, deployment of 100 units of 5kWe capacity would result in savings of almost 350,000 gal/yr of JP-8. This would generate a delivered fuel cost of $13/gal or a savings to the military of $4.6/million/yr. Return