Lloyd,
I don't know ICM's current activity. Sales of biomass burners and boilers in
North America is still difficult.
Sierra has clearly been successful in getting backing by the California
Energy Commission and the US Department of Defense but these are still
development steps. It costs millions of dollars and several years just to
start the engines on oxygen blown systems, or any industrial gasifier for
that matter.
Tom
From: Lloyd Helferty [mailto:lhelferty at sympatico.ca]
Sent: Saturday, August 24, 2013 5:20 PM
To: Tom Miles
Cc: 'Metta Spencer'; 'Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification'
Subject: Re: [Gasification] Waste Gasification and Pyrolysis
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-ar
my-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=
<http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=2446475> &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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