Method for assessing the impact of emission gasses on physiology and productivity in biological methanogenesis

•Successful method development for industrial emission gas impact assessment on BMP.•Good method validity through consideration of major mass transfer influencing factors.•The three tested gasses did not negatively influence biological conversion capacity. This contribution presents a method for quantification of the impact of emission gasses on the methane production with hydrogenotrophic methanogenic archaea. The developed method allows a robust quantification of the influence of real gasses on the volumetric productivity of methanogenic cultures by uncoupling physiological and mass transfer effects. This is achieved over reference experiments with pure H2 and CO2, simulating the mass transfer influence of the non-convertible side components by addition of N2 to the reactant stream. Furthermore, this method was used to examine the performance of Methanothermobacter marburgensis on different emission gasses. None of the present side components had a negative effect on the volumetric methane production rate. The presented method showed to be ready to use as a generic tool for feasibility studies and quantification of the physiological impact regarding the use of exhaust gasses as reactant gas for the biological methanogenesis.