French multinational company Air Liquide has announced it will build its largest ever biomethane production unit in Illinois, US. Air Liquide supplies industrial gases and services to various industries including medical, chemical and electronic manufacturers. It is the second largest supplier of industrial gases by revenues and has operations in over 80 countries.
The new production unit will be located in the city of Rockford, and will be able to produce biomethane from biogas from a solid waste treatment plant owned and operated by Waste Connections.
The facility will have a capacity of 380 GWh per year, becoming the largest production capacity per plant for Air Liquide. Thanks to this addition, the firm’s global biomethane production capacity will increase to 1.8 TWh.
Air Liquide is also building another landfill biomethane production unit in Delavan, Wisconsin, and will be operational by the second quarter of the year. With the expansion of these two new units, Air Liquide is set to become an important player in US biomethane production.
“Biomethane, like hydrogen and CO2 capture technologies, has a prominent place in the portfolio of solutions developed by Air Liquide to fight global warming and preserve the environment,” commented Emilie Mouren-Renouard, member of the Air Liquide executive committee, in charge of innovation, digital and IT, intellectual property and the Global Markets & Technologies World Business unit.
“The announcement of the construction of our largest biomethane production unit in the world illustrates Air Liquide’s determination to accompany its customers in the industrial and transportation sectors throughout the energy transition but also to actively contribute to the emergence of a low-carbon society.”
For these two projects, Air Liquide will use, in addition to its own membrane technology, a complementary technology developed by Waga Energy, which specialises in the valorisation of biogas from landfill sites.
