Running fuel cells on biogas - a renewable fuel

Biogas represents a renewable but largely under-exploited energy reserve of ten ignored because of the variable composition and often low level of meth ane that prevents its use in conventional power systems. As part of our con tinuing series of front-section articles on renewable waste energy, John St aniforth and Mark Ormerod from the Birchall Centre for Inorganic Chemistry and Materials Science at Keele University, UK, describe how biogas can be u sed directly in a solid oxide fuel cell even at remarkably low levels of me thane thus offering a valuable use for poor-quality biogas that is currentl y wasted.