Infrastructure challenges:

 

Engas UK’s technology addresses the infrastructural challenges to create high-value applications.

1. Production of medical oxygen: 

Engas UK is developing a portable oxygen generator that can be used at home in the first instances to save lives in many respiratory diseases e.g. Asthma, sleep apnea, Covit-19 Carona virus etc in remote locations, before the arrival of the paramedic team. Carona virus has stretched the healthcare system all over the world including the UK. There is still no dedicated medicine or vaccine with proven clinical trial for this pandemic. Oxygen seems to be one of the therapies/treatments being given to the affected people to assist breathing through various means. For example BiPAP (bi-level positive airway pressure), or PAP (positive airway pressure) devices are used prior to more invasive cases e.g. ventilators. These positive airway pressure devices are already in use for treatment of patients with COPD (Chronic obstructive pulmonary) or obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) diseases/conditions at homes. The delivery of oxygen at the right flow rate, pressure, concentration and humidity level is of paramount importance.  In many developing countries it is challenge to produce and supply oxygen to remote places. This is also true even for large hospitals if there is sudden demand in oxygen. It would be prudent to have a backup oxygen production system at homes, which this product will deliver, than relying fully on a centralised large oxygen plant; this will bring more resilience to the healthcare system.  Engas UK's novel oxygen generators will have several advantages over the incumbent products, as it will combine oxygen production, filtration and humidification using a novel air scrubbing compressor cum air filtration unit to destroy any virus/bacterial that may be present in the ambient air from aerosol generating activities. Apart from being used as a life saving device, this oxygen generator could also run in the background in "air purifier mode", to maintain indoor-oxygen level at the required level. Oxygen therapy is well known to have additional advantages to recover from stress/fatigue by boosting and maintaining oxygen level in the blood at the right level.  The product will be designed for regulatory approvals e.g. CE marking etc in due course. The product will be manufactured in the UK and in other countries under license for the world markets at the fraction of the cost of conventional ventilators.

 

2. Access to Energy and Fuel:

There are many farms, sewage treatment sites, landfill sites where raw biogas cannot be used onsite or the electricity cannot be exported to the grid due to limited grid-capacity or due to the high cost of grid reinforcement. But if this biogas is transported a few miles/km where this untapped resource can be used/sold, it would create attractive new business opportunities. But nobody is transporting this stranded raw biogas by filling into gas cylinders; this is because the moisture content in raw biogas would condense water inside the cylinders unless the gas is dried upfront of the compressor, but drying of raw biogas is inefficient due to the very high level of surface-water. More critically the high level of CO2 in raw biogas will liquefy itself at around 60bar causing serious blockage of piston and valves. The H2S in raw biogas will also cause system corrosion. These problems have led to the wastage of several hundred £ million/year worth of stranded assets in the UK due to the lack of a small-medium scale, portable, cost-effective biogas purification system. This problem is also common in other countries. Engas UK has solved this problem by their innovative gas compressor which will directly compress and upgrade raw biogas into high purity (97%) biomethane without a gas-dryer, which is then transported in gas-cylinders at 200-350 bar pressure for refuelling of vehicles and for back up power and / or for charging of electric vehicles without the electricity grid. Engas UK has developed a clean cooking solution using bio-CNG for the developing countries and conducted a GCRF (Global Challenge Research Fund) feasibility study in collaboration with the University of Surrey. For more details of the project please refer 

https://www.mecs.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Potential-for-bottled-biogas-for-clean-cooking-in-Africa_Feb-2020-working-paper.pdf

 

 

3. Energy Storage:

There is a widening-mismatch of the demand vs supply of power in the UK with more and more intermittent renewables power joining the energy-mix. National Grid-UK predicted there will be about 9 million electric cars by 2030 from today's 90,000 cars and the peak demand could be as much as 8 GW higher in 2030. Shifting the charging of cars to times when demand is lower would reduce the extra peak demand to 3.5GW. But the main challenges is anticipated to be at the distrubution sub-station level to deliver this additional power at the point of use, as the distribution network would often require new cabling. Engas is developing a battery and gas powered energy storage solution to address this challenge. Battery based energy storagehas the advantage of being fast responsive but a battery alone has high initial capital cost and diminishing capacity as a result of duty cycle. But a hybrid system of  Bio-CNG + battery would be significantly attractive in terms of £/kW installed and £/kWh stored or delivered. Furthermore this would not be entirely dependent on the electricity-grid as gas provides the back up which could be important for resilience and critical fleet operators. Bio-CNG bio-CNG could also be used to displace diesel and petrol from the transport sector thus lower Nox, lower particulate matter and lower SOx in the air.