[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
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=42237506675
http://groups.google.com/group/biochar-ontario
http://www.meetup.com/biocharontario/
http://www.biocharontario.ca
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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