Access to clean, sustainable energy is of critical importance to the industrialization of rural India. A major source of largely untapped energy comes in the form of biogas, which is produced from the anaerobic digestion of farm and landfill waste. This energy source is a renewable alternative to natural gas, but unfortunately, it is not produced in high enough purity to be used directly as a fuel.

This research seeks to design small-scale membrane-based separation devices for upgrading biogas on site in rural areas, thereby providing access to reliable, renewable energy in communities not readily connected to “grid” power.