The world's largest biogas plant for research purposes can be found at AU Foulum. It is used by researchers and companies for the study of technologies for all aspects of biomass treatment and control of the biogas process.
Not only livestock but also plants and other bio-materials are included in the research. One of the objectives of the research is to reduce the environmental impact of livestock production and improve the yields of biomass, both for energy purposes and for plant nutrition.
Besides the biogas plant, which has a 1200 m3 reactor producing around 4800 m3 gas per day, the facility also comprises laboratories, four small research reactors, instruments for measuring, controlling and monitoring the process, offices and special test facilities where researchers and companies can rent a space with experimental setups. Students also have the possibility to carry out experiments at the facility.
In 2011, a new test laboratory for experiments with the combustion of biofuels for energy purposes was opened at the biogas plant.
Researchers and engineers at the plant have considerable expertise in the optimisation of plant performance via the use of different kinds of biomass, and much experience in managing the biogas process and interpreting the data that are continually being collected, both from the large reactor and from the smaller experimental setups.
