Peace and Environment News* May 1995
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Peace and Environment News * May 1995 |
by Christine Taylor
Ensyn Technologies, a Canadian company based in Greely, Ontario, has developed a non-polluting process of converting potential landfill material into fuel and chemicals. The company describes itself as "an environmentally-driven solid waste disposal company which recycles waste materials into an array of useful products."
Ensyn diverts material that would end up at the landfill site and puts it through a process patented by their company called Rapid Thermal Processing (RTP). What RTP does is to heat the material at a very high temperature (400° to 950°C) for a very short period of time (0.5 seconds). This is done at ordinary atmospheric pressure with no oxygen. This heating process breaks up the structure of the biomass or "cracks" the chemical bonds, creating a liquid bio-oil, which, when cooled rapidly (so as to prevent further chemical reactions), preserves the chemical composition of the bio-oil.
The beauty of this process is that it produces no waste stream, is completely non-polluting, and the feedstock can consist of materials slated for the garbage dump such as wood waste, cardboard, newsprint, straw, bagasse, lignin, pulp sludge, tires, agricultural residue, rice husks, and all kinds of petroleum products. RTP is also known as fast cracking and is similar to the catalytic cracking process used in the oil industry. The final product is non-viscous, pourable and pumpable and has 55 percent of the energy value of light fuel oil, though the physical and chemical characteristics of the bio-oil depend on the type of feedstock.
If this "garbage" can be used for fuel, then why convert it into a liquid in the first place? There are a number of reasons why. Solid wood cannot be fed into a turbine or diesel engine. The transportation costs for the solids would be higher than for a liquid, and besides most governments prohibit the incineration of waste. But most importantly, there is a huge market for this kind of liquid fuel, especially in countries where there are carbon and sulphur taxes. Because there are no carbon or sulphur-based emissions, this bio-oil product qualifies, in Europe, for biomass tax credits that actually make it cheaper than the regular petroleum products there. In Canada we do not have sulphur or carbon taxes, making our fuel relatively cheap, so a plant would have to be very large scale to make it economical to produce here.
The concept for RTP originated from the University of Western Ontario and the work of Maurice Bergougnou. Ensyn was formed in 1984 by Robert Graham, Barry Freel and Don Huffman. Today the company has three operational plants producing boiler fuels and chemicals located in Greely and in Wisconsin, with six more in the design or construction stage in various countries, including Canada, the USA, Europe and Italy.
Ensyn is presently working on projects to expand the market beyond boiler fuel and chemicals to power production and water purification applications, especially in the areas of diesel engine development, turbine development, and activated charcoal. Ensyn is working with three Finnish engineering companies to develop a Wartsila stationary engine which will run on bio-oil instead of diesel fuel. Together with companies from Canada, the U.S. and Europe, Ensyn is developing a way to modify a stationary industrial Mashproekt gas turbine so that it can be run on bio-oil for commercial power production. Ensyn, along with several water purification production firms, is developing a technique to produce a high-value activated carbon from the charcoal that RTP produces as a byproduct. Activated carbon is much in demand for water purification, and if it is successful, the new process could produce revenues approaching those from bio-oil.
Altogether, these projects involve over $10 million in investments by Ensyn, its industrial partners, and Canadian and foreign governments. Ensyn has stressed that its work could not have been realized without the help of various groups, including the BioEnergy Development Program of Canada, the Centre for Mineral and Energy Technology (CANMET) (Energy, Mines and Resources Canada's main research and development arm), the Ontario Ministry of Energy's EnerSearch Program, and Rockcliffe Research and Technology Inc., another Ottawa-based company.
For more information, contact Ensyn Technologies Inc., 6847 Hiram Dr., Greely, Ontario K4P 1A2, phone 613-821-2148, fax 613-821-2754.
Christine Taylor is a member of the PEN Editorial Committee.
Converted June 20, 2000 - Lg
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