Description:
Background:
One can find numerous examples of industrial and domestic waste with high pollutant content (COD, BOD),
e.g., stillage, sludge, etc. Treatment of these streams for discharge is quite expensive. In principle, the organic content can be converted to fuel, heat, or power by use of anaerobic digestion (AD), but that technology is not always suited for many contaminants, due to the requirements of the living organisms that constitute the workhorses of AD.
Description:
Our researchers at the University of Nevada, Reno have created a new HydroPyras Process that converts biomass to a clean product and energy, including heat and power by combining hydrothermal processing, followed by wet air oxidation. This system can be applied to the waste water industry, dairies, landfill operators, and to many other businesses. Our HydroPyras Process will benefit the industry significantly since it is environmentally-friendly, highly controllable, and is an efficient way of producing energy and at the same time disposing aqueous wastes.
Advantages:
- Our method uses an environmentally-friendly solvent to decompose and oxidize a variety of wastes.
- Our system is highly controllable compared to other processes.
- Our method has significantly lower emission than other methods since it operates at much lower temperatures with little to no risk of NOx emissions.
- Our process produces exothermic heat available for immediate use without the need for additional steps for combustion of reaction products.
- Our method minimizes the possibility of pathogen contamination since it can recover and heat-sterilize recovered water from solid waste and waste-water/sewage streams.
- The HydroPyras Process has the potential to provide 95-97% volume reduction in the waste.
- When the organic fraction is fully oxidized, 100% of the fuel value is converted to heat.
Related Documents:
UNR17-002
