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:[email protected]] *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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