[Gasification] Waste Gasification and Pyrolysis

Lloyd Helferty lhelferty at sympatico.ca
Sat Aug 24 19:19:41 CDT 2013


Thanks, Tom.

  Good to know about the ICM gasifiers (Wichita, Kansas?)
   It is a company I had not paid very much attention to... even though 
Jon Orr had connected with the CBI back in mid-2011.
  Are they the ones involved with the GEVO tech? (for making JET FUEL... 
and Butanol from, for instance, Corn Ethanol Co-Products)

  Do you happen to know anything about /Sierra Energy/'s Gasification 
(the tech described in the original NY Times article 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/business/trash-into-gas-efficiently-an-army-test-may-tell.html> 
that Metta sent)?  I had not heard about this company before, yet here 
we have it being tested by the /US Army/...

Regards,

   Lloyd Helferty, Engineering Technologist
   Principal, Biochar Consulting (Canada)
   www.biochar-consulting.ca
   48 Suncrest Blvd, Thornhill, ON, Canada
   905-707-8754
   CELL: 647-886-8754
      Skype: lloyd.helferty
   Steering Committee coordinator
   Canadian Biochar Initiative (CBI)
   President, Co-founder & CBI Liaison, Biochar-Ontario
   National Office, Canadian Carbon Farming Initiative (CCFI)
   Come learn about biochar in October:
     www.carbon-negative.us/symposium
   Member of the Don Watershed Regeneration Council (DWRC)
   Manager, Biochar Offsets Group:
            http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=2446475
    Advisory Committee Member, IBI
   http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1404717
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   http://groups.google.com/group/biochar-ontario
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    www.biochar.ca

"Technology is only a tool.  Sustainability is determined not by the the individual technologies, but rather how -- and even whether -- we decide to use them."
    - Lloyd Helferty

On 2013-08-24 1:50 PM, Tom Miles wrote:
>
> Metta,
>
> When we pyrolyze plastics or trash we usually wind up with char that 
> is a hazardous waste. It must be disposed of at a high cost, typically 
> $600/ton, in a hazardous landfill, or further processed for disposal 
> in a lower cost - $80/ton -- landfill. It is not suitable for use as 
> biochar. Recent studies in Japan of the pyrogenetic characteristics of 
> molten slag from waste pyrolysis have sought to refine ash quality but 
> it does not contain carbon.
>
> Gasification is the conversion of a solid primarily to gas. The 
> char-ash residue is not the principal product. As Lloyd says there 
> have been many waste gasification systems. You will find example of 
> waste gasification projects funded by the US government from about the 
> 1970s readily on the internet. Oxygen blown past furnaces were among 
> the early technologies applied to waste. The Purox (Union Carbide) 
> process, still in use in Japan, comes to mind. A few years ago the 
> Purox process was considered for the city of Indianapolis for waste. 
> More recently Westinghouse plasma gasifiers are gasifying waste in 
> India and Turkey. Oxygen is burned in the plasma guns that heat a bed 
> of coke. The waste gasifies as it is partly heated by the plasma. Ash 
> melts and drip through the coke. One major ethanol project considered 
> using the Westinghouse plasma gasifier to produce syngas for 
> conversion to ethanol. All of the carbon is consumed in the process. 
> The ash in the blast furnace environment was sometimes converted to 
> glass, as in the Andco-Torrax 100 tpd pilot gasifier operated for 
> several years at the Disney World. In that process pyrolysis gas was 
> oxidized to melt the ash to glass. I remember that refractory wear was 
> a problem in that plant. Refractory wear is a challenge in waste and 
> coal gasification and has been studied extensively in the US.
>
> Purox - http://www.biomass2methanol.org/pureox01.htm
>
> Westinghouse Plasma http://www.westinghouse-plasma.com/
>
> Gasification and pyrolysis processes for waste should not be 
> discounted for producing biochar. When used with cleaner biomass they 
> make very good char. The gasifier that is built by ICM was originally 
> designed by a Boeing engineer who developed the gasifier for waste 
> gasification. (Boeing did more than build planes. We worked on a 
> Boeing designed refuse derived fuel plant in the 1980s. ) ICM bought 
> or leased the patent from the inventor. ICM has demonstrated that when 
> used with crop residues and urban wood wastes it produces a very good 
> char. They can make either ash or biochar. They applied field tests 
> for Iowa State University. It is a technology that is waiting for 
> suitable markets for heat, power and biochar for 200-400 tpd fuel input.
>
> http://www.icminc.com/products/advanced-gasification.html
>
> Tom
>
> *From:*Gasification 
> [mailto:gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] *On Behalf Of 
> *Lloyd Helferty
> *Sent:* Saturday, August 24, 2013 6:34 AM
> *To:* Metta Spencer
> *Cc:* 'Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification'
> *Subject:* Re: [Gasification] Please read this
>
> Metta,
>
>  Trash --> Char does NOT equal "Biochar".  [!]   I would NEVER 
> recommend using the stuff in soils...
>
> /Sierra Energy/'s Gasification. Also (probably) _not_ that NEW.   
> There are many, many, many Gasification systems out there that make 
> 'syngas' (hydrogen and carbon monoxide) ~ and can do things /similar/ 
> to this, although this does seem a bit "unique"... because of this so 
> called "/FastOx/ chemical reaction". [?]
>
> Best thing to do is probably to ask the folks on the "Gasification 
> List"... (CC'd)
>
<Snip>
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