Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Turning Garbage into Oil

Brian Appel and Changing World Technologies have developed a system that can convert any organic waste (municipal garbage, used tires, plastic wastes, offal, oil refinery residues, etc.) into a high quality gasoline, clean burning gas and purified minerals that can be used as fuels, fertilizers or specialty chemicals. It does this by doing the same thing as mother earth, that is, using intense heat and pressure, but in hours.

They have just completed the first industrial-size installation. The experimental factory takes turkey parts mixed with leftover restaurant grease and water and runs the smelly mixture through grinders, boilers and separation tanks. Along the way, the mixture is heated up twice - to about 500 and 1,000 degrees respectively and subjected to intense pressure 50 times normal atmospheric pressure. Every ton of turkey slop that goes in results in 640 pounds of clean burning oils that are sold as fuels, 100 pounds of methane, buthane and propane gas that are burned on site to generate the electricity that power the process, and 60 pounds of solid minerals that are sold as fertilizer. The only waste that is left behind is distilled water, plus there are no smokestacks belching pollution-laden smoke, no discharge pipes spewing wastewater, and enough electricity is generated to power itself without using any additional energy.

"This system will accept almost any carbon-based feedstock," says Appel. "If a 175 pound man fell in at one end, he would come out the other end as 38 pounds of oil, 7 pounds of gas, 7 pouns of minerals, as well as 123 pounds of sterilized water."


Biodiesel: Growing A New Energy Economy

21st Century Essential Guide to Methane and Biogas: Landfill Methane and Manure for Energy, AgStar Program, Recovery and Mitigation, Greenhouse Gas Emissions ... Biofuels, Bioenergy, and Biobased Products (CD-ROM)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Environman,

I am very impressed with your care and concern about our deteriorating environment. I am particularlly impressed with the postings in which you have described how to turn carbon based organic waste into gasoline that can power cars and other things. I want to know about this. I wonder if you can assist me in guiding me where I can learn more regarding this process. Not only am I interested in this amazing process I am also thinking of setting up a facility that can do this if possible. It may not be economically feasible now but I am sure if we are to study this further, some better results will be reviewed.


Thank you very much.

You can always reach me at my email at jba@tm.net.my

Enviroman said...

Try contacting Brian Appel of Changing World Technologies. I understand they currently have some problem with odour.