Abu Dhabi: Abu Dhabi plans to produce biodiesel from waste cooking oil and energy from landfill gases.
Tadweer, the Centre of Waste Management-Abu Dhabi, signed a two-year research agreement with Masdar Institute of Science and Technology in Abu Dhabi in August to focus on improving the process for the production of biodiesel from waste cooking oil.
The research will try to achieve fundamental improvement in the process of converting waste cooking oil into biodiesel through further experimentation and sensitivity studies, an official spokesperson of Tadweer told Gulf News.
Processing and reusing waste cooking oil as fuel is an environmental-friendly and sustainable energy solution that can contribute to targets for renewable energy generation within the UAE and abroad.
Taqa, Abu Dhabi National Energy Company, plans to produce biomethane, which can even fuel vehicles, from greenhouse gases emitted from landfills in Abu Dhabi.
An estimated 400 to 600 cubic metres of biogas, a mostly harmful greenhouse gas, is emitted from Abu Dhabi’s sewage sludge and municipal waste per annum, which will be captured and converted into energy in this project.
The biogas contains up to 50 per cent methane that is 23 times more harmful than carbon dioxide.
Abu Dhabi produces approximately 25,000 tonnes per annum of sewage sludge that produces a methane-rich biogas as a by-product. Taqa’s Technology Incubation Unit is planning the project to convert this biogas into “biomethane” that can be an alternative to Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) fuelling vehicles.
The degradation of the biological content of municipal solid waste within landfills is another source of biogas (known as landfill gas). Considering millions of tonnes of solid waste and each tonne generates up to 100 cubic metresof biogas (depending on the biological content of the waste), the potential to create “biomethane” is huge in Abu Dhabi. Electricity can also be generated from biomethane, Taqa said.
