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Advancing Biogas with Evonik Membranes - Erik Hoving

• The Landfill Group

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In this episode of Trash Talk, we are joined by Erik Hoving of Evonik for a discussion on biogas membrane technology. From the fundamentals of how membrane systems operate to insights drawn from real-world landfill projects, the conversation provides a practical and accessible look at the role of membranes in renewable natural gas (RNG) production.  

We also explore current industry challenges, the importance of collaboration in driving innovation, and why landfill gas applications serve as a critical proving ground for membrane technologies. Whether you are interested in the future of biogas upgrading or seeking a clearer understanding of the process, this episode offers valuable perspective. 

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ALiOWuPijnU

MIKE:

Welcome back to another episode of Trash Talk, where we here at the Landfill Group talk everything about the business of biogas, the, you know, culture and company that we've created around it. Kind of following a recent theme, got a couple of special guests today. One internal to the Landfill Group, I'll start with him, Tyler Helton. Tyler's on our our business development team here primarily focused on our products and services. Which I think is a good tie to our super extra special guest today from Evonik Membranes. Mr..Erik Hoving.

ERIK:

Thank you, yeah, thank you for having me.

MIKE:

Yeah. Welcome to Trash Talk.

ERIK:

Yeah. right! It's an honor to be here.

DAN:

You’re an elite member of the Trash Talk community

ERIK:

Thank you for the invitation.

MIKE:

All kidding aside, Erik. We've been, I would say, partners, associates in business together for a little over eight years now between the Landfill Group and Evonik. You've been our primary contact the entire time. So, maybe a bit about yourself, where you come from, your background and. yeah, just an introduction to who Erik Hoving is.

ERIK:

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm Erik Hoving, I'm the senior business manager for for Biogas Membranes North America. We are with the team for the biogas and we are based in New Jersey, so we have a headquarters in Piscataway. And Evonik is yeah, a chemical company. So we're not only making membranes, we're making more a lot of all the stuff medicine ingredients. We make animal feed ingredients, polymer ingredients. Yeah, Evonik is about with 5000 employees in the US, and we have some big production sites. And yeah, for the membrane part, those are made in Austria. We ship them over to the US and we have a warehouse in in Michigan, and we have a tech center in Allentown where we say support you on all your projects. I moved eight years ago to the US. So I'm originally Dutch and you start eight years ago with Evonik, and three months later I found myself on a landfill in Kansas. That was really an exciting adventure. That was actually the first, yeah, the biogas plant, a landfill plant for Evonik, so that was the first project.

MIKE:

So our our project in Lawrence, Kansas, that's where you found yourself when you came to the US. Did you ever imagine that you'd be at a landfill?

ERIK:

No, I didn’t.

MIKE:

Honestly I never thought I would.

TYLER:

Not many people do.

ERIK:

It was a very interesting experience, I would say. I've been on a lot plants before, so I, yeah, I'm 30 years now in the membranes in the chemical industry. So I've been on some huge plants. But this, this landfill is totally new concept so with big big trucks driving around. That was a very good, good experience. Yeah, yeah.

MIKE:

So that's kind of how the relationship, well I guess that would be where the relationship between the Landfill Group and Evonik started was at our Kansas facility. And so you said that that was Evonik’s first installation on a landfill?

ERIK:

Absolutely!

MIKE:

In the US or globally?

ERIK:

Global.

MIKE:

Globally.

ERIK:

That was really, say, the breakthrough for the landfill projects and for Evonik. Yeah, we started with small membranes now we have say the big membranes.

MIKE:

So you have four inch, six inch and eleven inch.

ERIK:

And eleven inch, correct.

MIKE:

So we have four and six inch there, correct?

ERIK:

Yeah.

MIKE:

And we originally developed that facility with a PSA system. And it was a what I would call like new old stock, so it was from a failed project, never got installed. Our founder Bill went and found him on an auction site or something like that and a bunch of other equipment. And I kind of bought it, you know, just cheap. In order for us to get that facility up and operational in a real quick period of time. You know, we built the pipeline, the plant and the gas collection system in like nine months or so all in conjunction. Knowing that we would eventually switch technologies, and that's where we we wound up with the, the Evonik membranes. And not to say that PSA systems don't work because they do. But we we've since pretty well standardized around the Evonik membranes and packages. That first encounter and test for both of us seems to have worked out pretty well.

ERIK:

Right, right. It was a bumpy ride, so it didn't work for the at first, and then we had to yeah, we made a lot of mistakes along along the way. But I think we we got a ton of wisdom. We learned a lot and we got a lot of wiser on that.

MIKE:

So you are a watcher of Trash Talk cause one of our episodes is or is going to be oh the things we've screwed up.

ERIK:

Oh, I'm sorry for that. Yeah. No, but I give also a lot of presentation in the past say on lessons learned. So this is definitely a lot lessons learned. And yeah, you always improved on the next time. So yeah.

DAN:

Can you, can you do me a favor and sort of for the simpler of us kind of explain just the basic the basic operation of a membrane. Like how does it physically, how does it physically work?

ERIK:

Going into membrane technology and how it works., so it's actually kind of splitting gas. For the RNG upgrading. you go with biogas in and you go with RNG out of a membrane. And on the way you have some off gas that is carbon dioxide. So the membrane is kind of filter. so it's like yeah, kind of sieve.

DAN:

Is this a molecular sieve? Is it a molecular sieve.

ERIK:

It's not the terminology molecular sieve, but it is sieving molecules right. So it's like sieving gold. I always compared it to sieving gold. So the gold, the valuable biomethane or the valuable renewable natural gas, you want to stay on the sieve and say, and the carbon dioxide you want to filter out. So you want to like water. So you're just sieving gold. You want to keep the gold on the filter and and the water you want to, yeah, get rid of. And that's, that's also how you run the operation, so you're just sieving the methane and you're removing the carbon dioxide. So if you look at the membrane it looked like spaghetti or a bundle of fibers. Straws but the straws are actually say hollow. So it's like every straw is a is actually a micro pipeline, a porous pipeline. So you go with biogas or biogas in and RNG out and filtering all along the pipe where you filter out the carbon dioxide. So it's kind of sieving the the methane from the carbon dioxide. And the carbon dioxide is small enough that it goes through the pores of the membrane. So the membranes have pores and and the methane is the bigger molecule. So the, the, the methane is like say a bowling ball, and the carbon dioxide is more like a, a baseball. But, I can maybe explain it. It's what I learned on the booth. So so you have say a methane. It's really a big molecule. So if you want to go through a door like this you'll get stuck. So this this is the carbon carbon atom. And this is the four things on the H. So it's C-H four right. So this is the big. So this sticks on the sieve right. So the the the the methane is too big.

MIKE:

It doesn't go through the holes.

ERIK:

But the carbon dioxide is like this. So this this is oxygen, this is oxygen and this is the carbon the carbon so CO2. So this is like methane, this is carbon dioxide. And the carbon dioxide jumps through the membrane wall, like the porous wall. So this is how it works.

MIKE:

Thank you for the live action. Can you also do I’m a little teapot?

DAN:

I know I can do that one.

ERIK:

Yeah I think also that sticks to people and they remember that and they at least they know the principle of bigger and smaller molecules and what we actually are trying to filter out.

MIKE:

Yeah, that's that's super helpful because I think most people and they think of a membrane, they think of like a geo-membrane or like a flat panel. In this case, it's little spaghetti tubes that are hollow. and have holes the CO2 passes through but methane doesn't. And you know that is keep it simple stupid, K.I.S.S. And the acting So kind of how a membrane works, but going back to the firsts and our partnership over the years. We've always considered ourselves to be very progressive early adopters in technologies. I mean, we've tried everything. You know, we were talking about all the things we've screwed up, that's because we try a lot of different things. And so, you know it wasn't just that we tried your membranes and began using them like there's been a bunch of other things that we've worked on together developing product and approaches. Maybe speak to some of those.

ERIK:

Yeah, absolutely. And like Steve Allman said, so we like to be your guinea pig. so thank you for that. So we got we got new products, yeah, we have to say new products, and we were able to test it on your site, also the Kansas site and other sites, Dubuque. Where we say new products and really could test it, say and give it run hours and test it to the to the real gas condition because landfill gas is one of the most challenging gas. So if you can make it there, you can make it everywhere. And that is really so we have say a new product the G5X, so we tested there also the R2X the predecessor of the R2X product we also tested there. We also tested even a NRU membrane say also at one of your sites. Yeah we really appreciate your partnership and doing the tests over there. And we yeah, we learned a lot, and we also evolved and say in new in making new products.

MIKE:

Likewise we appreciate, you know, the guinea pig comment like we love testing and trying things not only to make ourselves better in our, our projects that we own and operate, but products that we provide other folks. Absolutely. With yourselves at Evonik, you're you're now getting a better product that you can put into the marketplace.

ERIK:

No, but you're right. So but coming back to say you have different categories of say, biogas. So you have say the, the dairy gas and say the, the food waste gas, and you have wastewater gas and you have landfill gas. Landfill gas is really the top. There's a lot of impurities in it. VOCs, siloxanes, H2S, water. So the Landfill Group has a very good process of of removing all those constituents. So the Landfill Group has a lot of knowledge and experience on, say, keeping the membrane safe because the membranes work the best when when the pretreatment works the best. And I think you master that skill and, and say on a landfill gas level, that's really a top because that is really a it's really top level. What you're doing or what you accomplished, say, with all the the steps before the membrane because, it's not only the membranes, right? It's a lot of things before the membranes, and also in your videos you show that you have say a dehyd and a H2S and you have the TSA and then you have say the compression and again knock out and then say some polishing and then membranes and then say the sales gas compressor. So that is really so I think you have a very good good team.

MIKE:

Well thank you for that compliment, that is a great compliment. So specifically we’d partnered with Advanced Biogas Systems, our manufacturing fabrication with Evonik. And that means a lot coming from you saying that we've we've got a good process. We talked about a lot of the the firsts with the Landfill Group and Evonik. And but maybe go into like Evonik globally. What does that mean for like sites, biogas sites, RNG sites, like how many sites do you guys have in operations?

ERIK:

At the moment there are more than 1500.

MIKE:

One five zero zero.

ERIK:

One five zero zero biogas plants running on Evonik membranes. And we say that America runs on Evonik membranes. We have 250 biogas plants in America are run. Which is a pretty big part, if you say there are maybe 600-700.

MIKE:

I want to say there's like 500 around end of last year in the US. Boy that's a that's a pretty good market penetration in eight years to go to 50% of the market.

ERIK:

Absolutely. And yeah we always say we must be doing something good because people know about membranes.

DAN:

There's an environmental aspect to this too that we really haven't, we've kind of glazed over and that's like if we if we have the ability to separate and get the gold, if you will, and we can separate, you know, the gold from the waste that we're getting rid of. We're not letting it go into the environment. You know, we're capturing it and so the more we capture, the more efficient the membranes are, the more environmentally beneficial.

ERIK:

Absolutely.

DAN:

Yes, yes, we collect more gold, but we also take the stuff out of the air that would normally be a problem. So I mean there's a really good aspect to that that, you know, we're all trying to get the gold, but while we're doing it, we're doing this incredible environmental work.

ERIK:

Yeah, yeah I see it from a triple P perspective, so you have say people planet and profit. And this is really a win win win situation, so where the the planet profits the, the the people with the local jobs and say the independence of energy. And then also I say the the profit because companies need to make a profit, otherwise they can close shop. So I think it's really a win win win.

TYLER:

To everyone else that is out there, in your aspect, what is the piece of Evonik that brings that value out into people's projects?

ERIK:

Membranes are say, I would say in daily life also used right. So your body consists of membranes without knowing it. So it is I would say technology, technology of choice compared to other technologies. But if say if you look to membranes only, you say why do people choose Evonik? I think we have a good product, good service membranes are simple and easy to use. It's darn simple to operate, tt's almost set and forget. These people put the membranes in it and they don't have to watch, they can watch on all the things in operation. Maybe you see that. Our membranes are, say, have a high selectivity, that means you have less methane going to the off gas or to the environment.

MIKE:

You're losing less of that methane.

ERIK:

Yeah, you capture more. So that's that's really a benefit to to our membranes. And we also have a three stage patent process where you only use one compressor, and then you can operate the process on kind of cruise control way. So that's that's yeah. Most of those 1500 global references run on a three stage system because it's easy to, to run and capture high methane. Five years ago we made a huge innovation where we say double the output of the membrane system by just changing the chemistry, so we know there's there's much more to gain also in the next generations membranes. So maybe five, ten years from now you have even better membranes. It's like with the iPhones you just look, these things look the same, but an iPhone in ten years or so is much more faster and better. So Evonik also makes the chemistry itself, so we start totally with, say with the raw materials. And then we make a kind of honey solution, and from this honey solution we make our membranes and then we make the cartridge and the modules. But we are one of the membrane suppliers that only backward integrated. So we can tune the chemistry to make the best biogas membranes. All the folks that are just buy, say, ingredients and make membranes out of it, and then you lose a lot of properties to really choose the best membranes, durable, long term.

DAN:

So we talked a little bit about like protection, protecting the membranes. And that's something that the Landfill Group is pretty good at.

MIKE:

Yeah we have screwed up though.

DAN:

Oh yeah, but that's a different episode. But let's just go perfect world here, if if we're really efficiently protecting the membranes, how long will they last?

ERIK:

We have evidence that they last more than 12, 13, 14 years. Yeah, yeah.

DAN:

Really?

ERIK:

Yeah. So we really as long as you do the good pretreatment, we think they out last a compressor. We still have membranes running from 2001. They still run well.

MIKE:

Well we still have membranes from 2008.

ERIK:

2011 I have to say sorry for it’s 14 years.

MIKE:

Yeah, yeah, sorry not 2008, 2018 at Kansas, so those are still running. There's somebody listening or watching Trash Talk here, what are the things you need to be worried about

DAN:

or be cautious of?

MIKE:

Yeah. Like things you need to address if you're planning on utilizing membranes for CO2 separation?

ERIK:

The big thing people top of mind have say the volatile organic components, so VOCs. Yeah it’s kind of the aromas for nail polish or paint thinner and then go to landfill, at some point they make it to the plant. They need to be removed up front. But our membranes are super robust, so once they see they see these VOCs. If you do the pretreatment or fix the pretreatment, the membranes bounce back, that's what we see. Also, what we have seen in many of your landfill plants. The other thing is what I say oil, if oil makes it to the membrane, then you really have a problem. Fortunately, we don't see that a lot, but for some reason an operator mistake or can happen. And then carbon

MIKE:

That was another one we screwed up.

DAN:

That one I got.

MIKE:

Moisture is the other, like liquid?

ERIK:

That doesn't happen a lot.

MIKE:

I was told if you had moisture it can it can cause issues.

ERIK:

Not per say, but yeah. So the fibers are very long and small, so they’re not designed to have water inside. It's like you're building a bridge and suddenly there's a truck with a lot of water going over, then the bridge is not designed for that. So the normally there's no weight going into the fibers, but if there’s a lot of weight into the fibers can have effect.

MIKE:

I’ve said I heard that because that's one thing we haven't screwed up is we haven’t sent oil or water.

DAN:

Wait a minute, I’ll get there!

MIKE:

Zim you got questions from Tyler?

DAN:

I got nothing for you!

TYLER:

Good!

MIKE:

Thanks for the assist pal! So, Tyler, little over year here, in the landfill gas space now and, obviously getting, like, I mean, we're talking about four inch, six inch, 11 inch membranes with Evonik, I think you've got, like, a ten inch, you know, fire hydrant hose shoved down your throat. As a newbie to the space, like What have you learned about membranes over the last six months or so, and I want to like give you the opportunity as somebody that it's like new and just learn to maybe convey some details to somebody thats never been around a membrane plant or RNG plant. Like what are what are the things that you've learned in the last 6 to 12 months?

TYLER:

I think one of the big things that I've learned is, is kind of what we've been talking about, how resilient they actually are. Because you're, operations are never going to be perfect.

DAN:

Why did he say that?

MIKE:

Well, you didn’t ask the question. so he's throwing the rocks at you now.

TYLER:

Are you perfect? If you are, I’ll take you back.

DAN:

Absolutely not.

TYLER:

Okay. All right. In people that I've talked to around the industry, you know, you hear about other, you know, pieces of equipment that aren't quite as resilient, that are breaking more often, so. I asked a question earlier about value, to me, the value is that resiliency, the longevity that you've talked about, and, and the ability to kind of set them and forget in a way, you know, we've kind of had that conversation about it being, you know, kind of a laissez faire type of hands off thing.

MIKE:

Is he speaking. French?

DAN:

I think he did. But this is not an international show.

MIKE:

Oh that’s true!

TYLER:

I said international flair. Don't ask me for more than that, that's all I got. I am still drinking through the firehose, and I feel like I've got my, like, NFL coach playbook with all the Evonik, data and stuff that I'm flipping through and trying to make sure that when I'm talking to customers, like I have at least somewhat of an idea of, what I'm trying, to convey but, the value piece is, is what's easy to convey.

DAN:

It probably better helps that it's a nice product, right? It's easy to sell.

TYLER:

And we have the experience that it works.

MIKE:

It's confidence building because we've seen it work, we've operated in our facilities and you know, I think the stories you're talking about where we screwed up, When we do screw up, like, we've got a great team behind us.

ERIK:

Absolutely.

MIKE:

To say, all right, you guys, you've got yourself in this position, heres how you can get out and or. Hey, I see you guys going, you know, you taking this path. Like, hey, maybe we maybe we look at this a different way. You've saved us from a lot.

ERIK:

That’s also the great partnership that I think we both have, say that can do mentality, and we both have say the same. that we stand by our product. And you also want to have the best solution available and, and make it work. And I think and as, as Landfill Group, you have to live it with it. So there's, there's no escape, so you have to make it work, and also Evonik we stand by a product, we will make it work. We don't we won't leave the site until it really works.

MIKE:

We've seen that from you too, so thank you for that. You're going to make me talking about partnerships, and building or business relationships. Theres really two key things there right, trust and humility. Like I trust you and we have the humility to say

DAN:

To use science right to actually know.

MIKE:

It can help us.

DAN:

Like, hey, what happened?

ERIK:

Yes.

DAN:

We break this down we figured it out, thats science man as pure as it goes, that’s the good stuff.

ERIK:

And teamwork also. Yeah, Evonik has say, if you talk about values, our values are, trust, openness. and then, speed and performance. So that's, that's that's the four values That Evonik stands on. So we have a quite an overlap with your values.

MIKE:

Yeah. Thank you for bringing up values, I mean values vision aand mission are always something we talk about constantly at the Landfill Group.

ERIK:

Yeah, and safety culture too I think, yeah. So then I wasn’t talking a lot about safety, but Evonik also has safety in mind. Safety first. Whatever you do.

DAN:

But you're right, I mean, we can't do anything if we don't do it safe.

ERIK:

Right!

DAN:

That's just the foundation.

ERIK:

Yeah, it's like oxygen needs to be in place. That's the first thing, yeah, first thing first. So we also say we really walk the talk also by, say with meetings. So we start a meeting first with safety. You can say safety first, but if you don't start meeting with safety first like maybe at the end of the meeting, oh yeah it's something on safety. That's that's not right. And so we also at Evonik say even in meetings we have say also start with safety. No safety, no no, it can close the company.

MIKE:

Pretty much in my mind. I still have to give him copious amounts of trash over it.

DAN:

Every time you do!

MIKE:

Every chance I get.

DAN:

Everything that's not right, he blames me for.

MIKE:

Well it’s only right!

DAN:

But, yeah, we do really appreciate time, and and really appreciate your partnership. It's, it's been a very successful project, and it's just going to keep going.

ERIK:

Yeah, thank you, it's pleasure being here. And thank you for the invitation, really appreciate it. And some good laughs, I, I really like working together.

DAN:

It has to be fun. Thats another rule.

MIKE:

Oh yeah, it’s safety first, fun second, where does business go?

DAN:

It’ll get there! It all comes together.

MIKE:

All kidding aside, we, we at the Landfill Group do appreciate the relationships that we've fostered with Evonik over the years. Thank you for taking the time, I know you had to travel to come to Charlotte today and and yesterday. And so you're making a multiple day commitment to us. And I think that's not a shock to us given the way

ERIK:

Oh you're welcome!

MIKE:

You've supported us over the years.

ERIK:

Thank you.

MIKE:

I guess in closing, what I would say is if anybody out there is watching, listening and, you know, considering a a membrane process for biogas to our RNG plant, Erik Hoving he can, be found on, I'm sure LinkedIn, the website all over, all over the interwebs.

DAN:

Or you can call us.

MIKE:

Or you can call us. You can call Mr. Tyler Helton who can help you out through the through the Advanced Biogas Systems part of of Landfill Group. With, thank you again for joining us for another episode. Dan Tyler anything in closing. You're just you're hitting the button,

DAN:

He’s dropping the mic

ERIK:

Subscribe.

MIKE:

Subscribe. You know, like, hit that subscribe button. And you can't take Blair's line of, smashing the like button. I don't know what I don't know where she got that. She's not really aggressive in real, real life.

DAN:

Sure she is.

MIKE:

Smash the like button and subscribe. All kidding aside, thank you again. One last shout out, thank you to Andy Presley and the folks at Meca Realty here and in Charlotte, North Carolina, for letting us, unannounced, crash the conference room.

DAN:

We just took over this conference room.

MIKE:

We suddenly found ourselves homeless, with cameras and Erik Thank you, Andy.

DAN:

Thanks team! Appreciate you guys.