History

Gasification Process

The deployment of waste gasification technology has largely been prohibited by expensive plant designs that operate above the ash-fusion temperature, and require costly back-end clean-up measures to ensure clean syngas before introduction to gas turbine systems.

With access to simple low-cost gasification hardware, industry will be able to produce cost-effective renewable electricity.  Production of cost-effective syngas through gasification of Municipal Solid Waste has long been a goal of industry.

The Process makes syngas that can be used to generate electric power at high efficiency by using a simplified combined cycle:  heat recovered from the turbine exhaust is used to generate steam injected back into the turbine combustor, increasing mass flow, and providing additional power output.

The Process can also add “green attributes” to retro-fit fossil based systems, reducing CO2, SO2, and NOX emissions, while producing a steady stream of GHG credits applied to Renewable Power Standards (RPS).

Gasification method is similar to the fluid/spouted-beds of the historic type thermal-reactors developed in the United Stated during the 1970’s and further during the 80’s and 90's.  This relies on recent advanvements in fluidization by employing a Jet-Spouted-Bed (JSB) primary that is integrated with a Riser type tar-cracking reactor, which improves the over-all process efficiency.

The Process was developed specifically for use with Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF), a feedstock with low fixed carbon and a high volatile fraction that is recovered from Municipal Solid Waste (MSW).  Greater conversion efficiency is achieved by integrating proprietary tar-cracking technology with the gasification reactor, which serves to simplify the syngas cleaning process, and enables superlative environmental performance by producing ultra-clean syngas.

Fundamental calculations for the autothermal gasification process were developed following the work of Dr. Daizo Kunii, industrial fluidization expert of Japan, whose work in “Fluidization Engineering” is exhaustive, well-known, and is applied commercially in petroleum refining, steel making, and minerals processing.  The principles underlying the design of the syngas reactor  were applied to the PYROX Type Dual-Fluid-Bed gasification.

The Gasifier consists of a Jet-Spouted fluid-bed, circulating sand-like catalyst particles, followed by a tar-cracking reactor of proprietary design.  Due to the jet-spouted distributor employed in the gasifier, attrition of the feedstock is very rapid.  All internal surfaces are refractory lined so that no exotic metallurgy is required.

This Waste-to-Energy plant will process MSW, generating electricity with low air emissions. Ash contaminants are bound as insoluble metal sulfides.