Air Liquide to build biomethane production unit in US

Paris-based Air Liquide, a supplier of industrial gases, has announced the construction of what it calls its largest biomethane production unit in the world. The company says the facility, being built in the U.S., will bring the worldwide biomethane production capacity of the group to 1.8 Terawatt-hours (TWh).

According to a news release from Air Liquide, the production unit is being built in Rockford, Illinois, and will produce biomethane from a solid waste treatment plant’s biogas. That plant is owned and operated by Waste Connections Inc., Vaughan, Ontario. The unit will have a production capacity of 380 gigawatt hours per year, which Air Liquide says represents the largest production capacity plant for the group. It will be operational by the end of 2023. 

“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,” says Émilie Mouren-Renouard, head of Air Liquide’s innovation, digital and IT, intellectual property and global markets and 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.”

Another biomethane production unit for another landfill is being built in Delavan, Wisconsin, and will be operational at the beginning of Q2 2022.

For these two projects, Air Liquide says it will use, in addition to its membrane technology, a complementary technology developed by Waga Energy, a company specialized in the valorization of biogas from landfill sites in Meylan, France.

Globally, Air Liquide now has 21 biomethane operational production units in the world for a yearly production capacity of about 1.4 TWh. After the commissioning of the Rockford and Delavan plants, the Group’s biomethane production capacity will reach 1.8 TWh per year.