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News News I / 2016 March 2016
News
WWF S. EnerINDUS
News
I / 2016 March 2016
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Eberswalde, March 2016 Dear readers,
This newsletter shall inform you - on a regular basis - about the latest news from the waste2chemicals and we hope to provide you with interesting insights into our world of innovative solutions for sustainable business.
Ideas that might even inspire you and help you with your visions for the implementation of efficiently and effectively protecting our environment.
Interesting especially, when we will show that environmental protection and sustainability do not have to be expensive, quite the opposite!
The waste2chemicals has invested a lot of money and time in research during the recent years and we are proud to present its first results today. One of these results is a system which we have developed in cooperation with our Austrian partner pro aqua. A plant that produces sodium hypochlorite, and other disinfecting species out of ordinary salt. The first plant of this kind is soon being shipped to Shanghai / China, but more about that below.
Another important issue is the handling of waste, such as manure and sewage sludge. The legislature is about to tighten the rules relating its spreading dramatically. The eutrophication of the soil and the harmful entry of nutrients into our waters, with fatal consequences for the environment, calls for strict rules. A challenge for many businesses that are now already suffering under the high disposal costs. We have found a way to replace the classic disposal, with a cost-effective and above all, extremely efficient, recycling and energy recovery method for this waste. But we see in those materials rather valuable raw materials instead of waste residues. We invite you to our vision of protecting the environment and your budget with our equipment.
But now, enjoy exploring the innovative visions of W2C
Sincerely
Yours
Ferdinand Graf Strachwitz CEO
Content:
The W₂C container plant for the production of NaOCl
Manure and sewage sludge, from waste material to raw material
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The W₂C container plant for the production of NaOCl
Due to the close cooperation between the pro aqua Diamantelektroden Produktions GmbH from Austria (http://proaqua.cc) and W₂C, an interesting business cooperation developed. In 2015, Dr. Michael Schelch, the managing director of pro aqua, approached the W₂C with the idea of building a container plant for the production of sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl). The competence of W₂C in the field of container plant construction and from pro aqua in the production of diamond electrodes led, within a few months, to the successful production of a pilot plant.
The unique feature of the plant for once is the used diamond electrodes, which are made exclusively by pro aqua. Secondly, it is the control software, which was developed for the W₂C by EB Müller. In these plants saline is being converted into NaOCl through electrolysis. In addition to NaOCl also other oxidizing (disinfecting) substances are being produced. The transient nature of these substances is an advantage in the breaking down, but this usually means poor storability.
The on demand and local production has significant advantages over in storage, purchased products.
The first of this plant will be exported to Shanghai / China. There the NaOCl is
being used as a fungicide, which leaves no traces in food.
Shanghai is the most important industrial city of the People's Republic of China and one of the largest cities in the world.
Shanghai has, excluding outskirts, about 15 million inhabitants, plus numerous local, up to 50 km distant municipalities with another approximately 8 million inhabitants. While the city has high density, the rural outskirts are dominated by a rather provincial settlement structure. Many different types of vegetables are being grown, but these need to be treated against infestation by fungi and bacteria. The previous use by conventional fungicides had the disadvantage that they do not sufficiently degrade quickly and therefore are passed on into the food chain. The use of NaOCl, and more particularly the other disinfectant ingredients, solves this problem. Farmers can now purchase - via an app - the required amount of disinfectant and then immediately have it dispensed at the plant installed on site. The fungicide can now be used in a timely manner, without losing its effect during storing or unnecessarily long transport routes.
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The plant and all production parameters will be remotely monitored via a web interface for irregularities, but also to be able to timely replenish saline and ultimately to ensure a simple and user-friendly accounting of harvested quantities.
Another field of application for this technology is the disinfection of equipment, tanks and pipes as in the dairy industry.
These plants produce approximately 2,000 liters per day, but can also be supplied in smaller sizes if the amount required is correspondingly lower.
Manure and sewage sludge, from waste material to raw material
The initial situation:
Sewage sludge and manure contain important raw materials but occur in large quantities. Unfortunately, they not only contain raw materials and nutrients, but also quite a bit of environmentally harmful "ballast". But as well as in many other respects, also nutrients should be used moderately.
Manure is a naturally accruing fertilizer. High levels of fixed nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and other nutrients make manure an important fertilizer. In the Federal Republic of Germany each year approximately 180-200 million tons of manure occur. The application of manure on agricultural land reduces the need for purchasing synthetic fertilizers for farmers.
In addition each citizen consumes about 120 liters of water per day in Germany, which reaches as waste water, through the sewer system, the water treatment facilities. By passing through mechanical and biological purification stages, the waste water is freed of contaminants and then introduced as clean water into the aquatic environment. What remains is the Sewage sludge.
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Each year 29 million tons of Sewage sludge (7% dm) (2 million tonnes of sludge dry matter) from municipal wastewater treatment plants are being produced in this country.
The problem:
But what happens with these incredible amounts? According to the Federal Environment Agency in 2012 about 54 percent of sewage sludge dry matter were incinerated, 30 percent applied agriculturaly and 16 percent used in landscaping, composting and other recycling.
Manure is almost exclusively used again in agriculture as fertilizer. The fertilizer ordinance (DüV), which regulates the application of fertilizers, including organic, is currently being amended.
A comparable nitrogen ratio such as that prevailing in Denmark since the 80s is currently under consideration. This limits the nitrogen application including organics at 60 - 120 kg nitrogen per hectare per year. At present (2015), according to the DüV, 170 kg of nitrogen per hectare of arable land and 210 kg of Nitrogen per hectare grassland may be applied in Germany in form of livestock manure. However, this includes only the manure and does not yet limit the future rate of the overall nitrogen application.
In cases of phosphate, potassium and magnesium surplusses, the spreading of manure will additionally be strictly regulated. It then can also only be applied a maximum of 27 m³ of pig manure per hectare and year, if the soil is classified in the content classes A, B or C. The content classes reflect the values of the nutrient content of potassium, phosphate and magnesium determined by soil testing . If in previous years, an excessive amount of fertilizer has been applied, which is the case especially in animal husbandry intensive regions such as in the region of Vechta, the soil will be classified into the classes D and E, so no further manure may be applied. For the spreading of manure a certification concerning an allowed output quota is being needed, showing whether the produced manure can be properly utilized.
For violations it is planned that farmers loose parts of their subsidies from Brussels. The average farmer generates between 30 – 70% of his revenues through these subsidies.
Photo-credit: haz.de
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Even more difficult is the situation concerning sewage sludge. The German Federal Council agreed in 2013 (docket 576/13) that phosphorus is an essential building block of life and an indispensable fertilizer for agriculture. For this reason the Federal Council advocates that an efficient recovery and use as well as recycling and waste minimization, are important steps on the path towards sustainable use of phosphorus. In the course of this, the Federal Council demands the Federal Government to take steps towards the following measures:
that strengthened measures for the recovery of phosphorus from waste are being initiated in addition to the phosphorus recovery from wastewater,
the recovery of phosphorus is carried out through sustainable measures while meeting the requirements of preventive environmental protection,
to develop and define binding concrete measures and requirements for phosphorus recovery on the basis of a European phosphorus recovery strategy and
under the proposed new EU fertilizer regulation, a uniform and demanding EU limit for Cadium is set in mineral phosphate fertilizers.
In addition, the Federal Council calls upon the Federal Government to lead the way at a national level, for taking the measures necessary to make the valuable raw material phosphorus available to agriculture and to promote measures for its recovery from sewage sludge and sewage sludge ashes.
Subsequently, the following resolution was passed in the current coalition agreement of November 2013:
„The protection of waters from nutrient inputs and pollutants should be strengthened and legally designed so that erroneous trends are corrected. We will end the sewage sludge application as fertilizer and recover phosphorus and other nutrients.”
Additionally, in 2014 phosphate rock was put on the list of critical raw materials by the European Commission, so that recycling activities will be promoted. Since the agricultural spreading of sewage sludge is soon being prohibited entirely, solely incineration would be remaining. Additionally, the recovery of raw materials is now playing an increasingly important role. The different ways of thermal processing do not all have the ability to recycle the valuable phosphorus. The sewage sludge ashes of mono-incineration have a high phosphorus content, which is not available to the plants and in addition contains heavy metals. For the recovery from the ashes, there is no genuine uniform procedure yet. The present methods are very costly and not in operation at an industrial scale. The ash from the co-incineration is not suitable for the recovery of phosphorus, since it was either diluted by the ashes of the actual burning material to such an extent that the recovery is not profitable or, for example, the phosphorus is bound at the incineration in cement factories permanently in the building material. For co-incineration a limit of max. 25 kg phosphate
The discovery of phosphorus is credited to the German alchemist Hennig Brand in 1669. Brand experimented with urine, which contains considerable quantities of dissolved phosphates from normal metabolism. Working in Hamburg, Brand attempted to create the fabled philosopher's stone through the distillation of some salts by evaporating urine, and in the process produced a white material that glowed in the dark and burned brilliantly. It was named phosphorus mirabilis ("miraculous bearer of light"). His process originally involved letting urine stand for days until it gave off a terrible smell. Then he boiled it down to a paste, heated this paste to a high temperature and led the vapours through water, where he hoped they would condense to gold. Instead, he obtained a white, waxy substance that glowed in the dark. Brand had discovered phosphorus.
Wikipedia
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per ton dry matter is being considered. If the source material contains more phosphate, incineration is not permittable. This regulation will probably come into force for a transitional period of 8 years. Our Solution: The W₂C plant can recycle sludge or manure energy neutral (min. 7% of dry matter content), thanks to our patented Solvolysis-technology. Through a wet-chemical process, sewage sludge or manure is separated into organic and inorganic matter. The inorganic components are then separated, so that the fertilizer components are precipitated individually and the heavy metals are excreted separately. Raw fertilizer is being produced in the process, which then will be processed at central W₂C treatment locations into commercial diammonium hydrogen phosphate (DAP) and ammonium sulphate (SSA). The energy contained in the organic, released in form of flammable gas by electrolysis, is then used via a CHP for the autonomous supply of the entire process.
The W₂C plants therefore have an invaluable benefit for the environment:
fertilizer separated in phosphate and nitrogen to be used specifically dosed CO2 savings due to loss of major transportation routes for disposal by third parties CO2 savings by eliminating the transportable water content (manure> 90%) closed energy cycle – no additional power required for operation effective complete destruction of all germs, drug residues, hormones, etc. separation of heavy metals clean water that can be discharged anywhere, as one of the end products
Due to the high process temperatures and the pH level in some stages of the process, it is ensured that the water extracted from it, will be free of multiresistant pathogens (MRE), germs, hormones, antibiotics and other drug residues. It also meets the stringent requirements to be used as feeding water in animal husbandry or for irrigation of agricultural land.
=> immeasurable value to the environment and thus for the Image
For our customers a financial gain:
disposal costs eliminated in, for example, waste incineration plants no or significantly minimized transport costs no additional expenditures for energy such as in drying Systems
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Our W₂C plant, with a processing capacity of 0.8 t / h and therefore suitable for wastewater treatment plants with about 10,000 PE and agricultural farms with min. 4,000 fattening pigs or 300 cattle, is housed in a 40 foot Iso-container. The transportability and hence the easy installation of the equipment are guaranteed by the construction within containers, so the W₂C plant can be put into operation without lengthy and comprehensive installation work on site.
The W₂C - solvolysis plants are therefore able to extract the vital resource of phosphate and nitrogen from sewage sludge and manure.
For this purpose they need just as much energy as contained in the feedstock materials. Energy efficiency at the highest level. The resources can then be utilized again fully and purposefully in agriculture applications. Resource efficiency at the highest level.
What remains is clean, reusable water without drug residues, hormones, pathogens, MRE and bacteria. Environmental protection at the highest level.
Visions for innovation, sustainability, energy efficiency, resource efficiency and environmental protection are the foundation for the products & services of the W₂C.
For further information, please do not hesitate to contact us:
waste2chemicals GmbH
Mühlenstraße
16227 Eberswalde
T.: +49 (0) 3334 / 55 2900
www.waste2chemicals.com
