A demonstration of Advanced Thermal Technology which showed UK waste industry how Advanced Thermal Technology, with gasification and pyrolysis has great potential for waste treatment in compliance with EU policies on Waste and Emissions

Compact Power Limited (subsequently thought to be part of Summerleaze Ltd) participated in the Defra Demonstrator Project (circa. 2003 to 2008) under which Compact Power designed, built and operated an innovative Advanced Thermal Technology at Avonmouth.

It is thought that the plant continues in operation although not for disposing of the original mixed MSW feedstock.

The following Project Description is based upon information published by Defra as part of the UK Government's New Technologies Demonstrator Programme. The New Technologies Demonstrator Programme was set up to, as the name suggests, demonstrate how new waste treatment systems could be operated in a sustainable, safe, and environmentally acceptable manner.

It is believed that cost data was obtained on the cost of each of the technologies from demonstrator program participants, but this information was not available to the author of this article at the time of writing.

For the duration of the project Compact Power Ltd and Bristol City Council collaborated on the development of this demonstration project and the advanced thermal conversion energy from waste plant was located in Avonmouth.

Bristol City Council will provided the site and supplied the necessary waste feedstock. The project included the demonstration of production of combined heat and power (CHP), and it is thought that almost complete diversion from landfill through the use of this integrated waste management process with energy recovery, was achieved.

Compact Power developed their thermal process technology to deliver sustainable solutions for the safe and clean disposal of waste and the conversion of wastes and biomass material into renewable sources of energy.

The technology is described as advanced thermal conversion that combines the processes of pyrolysis, gasification and high temperature oxidation.

The technology works by heating waste at a high temperature in an oxygen free chamber. This converts waste to simple gases and carbon char. The carbon is then also converted to gas and the resulting gases are combusted to produce heat, which is then converted to energy as steam.

 

The process generates only low levels of emissions that are well within the EU regulations for such facilities. The technology is thought to have allowed efficient energy recovery and but the fate of the planned production of valuable by-products is not known to the author of this article.

Compact Power decribed the technology as being designed in a configuration based on a multi-tube ("MT") module consisting of:

- a two tube pyrolysis unit
- feeding carbon and ash residues to a single gasification unit.

Each tube was to be rated for a throughput capacity of 500kg per hour when processing material with a calorific value of 12 MJ/Kg.

The modular design was to offer small scale solutions for waste and biomass processing with low visual impact.

The intention has been to that up to 80% of the energy value of the waste would be recovered as usable power and heat. Modules of the plant would be small, but the concept was to use a modular design so that additional modules would be added for larger throughputs

In that way the plant design could be optimised to meet requirements from 6,000 tonnes to 60,000 tonnes per year and more.

The Compact Power plant philosophy fits comfortably with EU waste strategy in which integrated waste management was achieved by producing energy from the residual non-recyclable waste after recycling and composting has been undertaken.

The technology has the potential to convert wastes into high value recycled products such as activated carbon, carbon black, and lightweight aggregates, and the process gas produced could be further cleaned and used for a wide variety of transport fuel, and synthetic chemical production purposes.

The Summerleaze website is at http://www.summerleaze.co.uk/ .