When I first joined an AD company a long time ago I heard frequent reference to tea; it came from hushed voices round the water fountain, it was as if some magical force was involved that solved the world’s problems. So, I kept my head down, determined to understand the mysteries of this great secret remedy.

Now the reality of these things is a little less fanciful, but in no way less magical. T.E. (I heard it as Tea!), rather than being the lifeforce of any company (although actually the Marches team do like a good strong cup of coffee as well!) actually stands for ‘Trace Elements’.

Now here comes the tricky science bit, when you have low trace element contents in the anaerobic digesters it can cause microorganism instabilities and as a result low biogas production and overall process instability.  Cobalt in particular is a limiting factor for growth and activity of the little methanogenic critters. Alongside Cobalt, several other elements such as nickel, selenium, molybdenum and tungsten are considered essential trace elements for biogas microorganisms. Right, that’s the biology lesson over! Now personally I don’t profess to understand the complexity of what’s going on in the digesters, but I know someone who does, well not someone rather a whole group of the team at Marches.

So, if you have a digester that’s not really performing as once it did, it just might be that you need some magical elixir, and the Marches biology team will be just the folks to help. They can do some tests and work out exactly the ones you need, although I’m not positive, it’s unlikely to be Lapsang Souchong!