{"id":179,"date":"2018-03-07T10:33:52","date_gmt":"2018-03-07T10:33:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/horizon.peachpuff-wolverine-566518.hostingersite.com\/?p=179"},"modified":"2018-05-29T23:44:52","modified_gmt":"2018-05-29T23:44:52","slug":"turning-landfill-into-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/179\/turning-landfill-into-energy\/","title":{"rendered":"Turning landfill into energy"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"field field-name-field-header field-type-text-long field-label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field-items\">\n<div class=\"field-item even\">\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\"><strong>Landfill is both ugly and polluting. But a new breed of technology promises to make it a thing of the past, transforming a huge portion of landfill material into clean gas.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field-items\">\n<div class=\"field-item even\">\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\">It\u2019s thanks to a process called gasification, which involves turning carbon-based materials into gas by heating them to a high temperature but without burning them. The gas can be stored until it is needed for the generation of electricity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\">According to its developers, advanced gasification can be fed by plastic, biomass, textiles \u2013\u00a0just about anything except metal and rubble. Out of the other end comes syngas \u2013 a clean, easily combustible gas made up of carbon monoxide and hydrogen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\">The basics of the technology are old. Back in the 19th century, gasification plants existed in many of Europe\u2019s major cities, turning coal into coal gas for heating and lighting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\">Gasification waned after the discovery of natural gas reserves early last century. Then in the past 20 years or so, it had a small renaissance, as gasification plants sprung up to process waste wood.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\">In a new, advanced implementation, however, a much broader range of materials can be processed, and the output gas is much cleaner. \u2018Gasification is clearly gaining a lot of traction, but we\u2019ve taken it further,\u2019 said Jean-Eric Petit of French company CHO Power, based in Bordeaux.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\"><strong>Gasification<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\">Gasification involves heating without combustion. At temperatures greater than 700\u00b0C, a lot of hydrocarbon-based materials break down into a gas of carbon monoxide and hydrogen \u2013\u00a0syngas \u2013\u00a0which can be used as a fuel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\">For materials such as wood, this is relatively straightforward. Try it with other hydrocarbon materials, and especially hard-to-recycle industrial waste, however, and the reaction tends to generate pollutants, such as tar.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\">But tar itself is just a more complex hydrocarbon. That is why Petit and his colleagues have developed a higher temperature process, at some 1200\u00b0C, in which even tar is broken down.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\">The result is syngas, which, unlike other thermal processes, does not create dangerous pollutants. In fact, it is high-quality enough to be fed directly into high-efficiency gas engines, generating electricity with twice the efficiency of the steam turbines used with conventional gasification, says Petit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\">CHO Power has already built an advanced gasification plant in Morcenx, France, which converts 55,000 tonnes of wood, biomass and industrial waste a year into 11 megawatts of electricity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\">In December\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/ec.europa.eu\/research\/index.cfm?pg=newsalert&amp;year=2017&amp;na=na-201217\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the EU announced<\/a>\u00a0that the company will receive a \u20ac30 million loan from the European Investment Bank to construct another plant in the Thouarsais area of France.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\">The company is not the first to attempt advanced gasification on a commercial scale. But, said Petit: \u2018We think we\u2019re the first to crack it.\u2019<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\">CHO Power\u2019s gasification plants still need to have waste delivered to them. Hysytech, a company in Torino, Italy, however, plans to bring gasification to industry\u2019s door.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\">The idea is to build a small gasification plant, processing at least 100 kilos per hour of waste, next to any industrial plant that deals with hydrocarbon materials \u2013 a textiles or plastics manufacturer, for instance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\">Then, any waste the industrial plant generates can be turned straight into syngas for electricity generation on site, avoiding the emissions associated with transporting waste to a distant gasification plant.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_180\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-180\" style=\"width: 1941px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/03\/crop-2_large.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-180\" src=\"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/03\/crop-2_large.jpg\" alt=\"The gas produced by CHO Power's gasification process is refined at 1,200\u00b0C in their turboplasma facility (left) so that it can be used in a gas engine (right) to generate electricity. Credit - CHO Power\" width=\"1951\" height=\"1074\" srcset=\"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/03\/crop-2_large.jpg 1951w, https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/03\/crop-2_large-300x165.jpg 300w, https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/03\/crop-2_large-768x423.jpg 768w, https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/03\/crop-2_large-1024x564.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1951px) 100vw, 1951px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-180\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The gas produced by CHO Power&#8217;s gasification process is refined at 1,200\u00b0C in their turboplasma facility (left) so that it can be used in a gas engine (right) to generate electricity. Credit &#8211; CHO Power<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\"><strong>Small-scale<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\">The problem is that, historically, gasification on this scale has cost too much to be in an industry\u2019s interests. But Hysytech believes it has made small-scale gasification cost effective, by developing a novel reactor known as a fluidised bed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\">When waste materials are fed into this reactor, a fluid is passed through them to create an even temperature and to allow the gas to leave easily. If the materials need a lot of time to turn to gas, they remain in the reactor until they are gasified, but the fluid can be sped up if the materials turn to gas quickly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\">The result, for smaller plants at least, is a more efficient and cost-effective process. \u2018Our system is designed and built to operate year-round with a good efficiency, easy operation and little maintenance,\u2019 said Andr\u00e9s Saldivia, Hysytech\u2019s head of business development.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\">Hysytech has built a pilot plant that has about one-tenth the envisaged output, processing 10 kilos of waste an hour into syngas. Currently, its engineers are constructing a full-sized demo plant that will include an additional power-to-gas system, to link the gasification to surplus energy from wind turbines and solar panels so the energy is not wasted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\">With this additional system, the surplus energy is used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Using a carbon source, this hydrogen is then converted into methane, which can be used like everyday natural gas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\">\u2018Our goal is to have it ready for the market (by) 2019,\u2019 said Saldivia.<\/p>\n<p><em>Originally published on <a href=\"https:\/\/horizon-magazine.eu\/\">Horizon<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Landfill is both ugly and polluting. But a new breed of technology promises to make it a thing of the past, transforming a huge portion of landfill material into clean gas. It\u2019s thanks to a process called gasification, which involves turning carbon-based materials into gas by heating them to a high temperature but without burning &#8230; <a title=\"Turning landfill into energy\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/179\/turning-landfill-into-energy\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Turning landfill into energy\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311,"featured_media":181,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11,16],"tags":[40,4,25,125,28],"class_list":["post-179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-earth-energy-environment","category-technology","tag-energy","tag-environment","tag-innovation","tag-pollution","tag-technology"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.7 (Yoast SEO v27.7) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Turning landfill into energy - Horizon Magazine Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/179\/turning-landfill-into-energy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Turning landfill into energy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Landfill is both ugly and polluting. 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Innovative furnaces based on biofuel systems will generate heat and power from waste materials with near-complete efficiency and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Earth, Energy &amp; Environment&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Earth, Energy &amp; Environment","link":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/category\/earth-energy-environment\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2022\/06\/jun16.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2022\/06\/jun16.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2022\/06\/jun16.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2022\/06\/jun16.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2022\/06\/jun16.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2467,"url":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/2467\/the-push-to-turn-climate-culprit-co2-into-a-green-force\/","url_meta":{"origin":179,"position":3},"title":"The push to turn climate culprit CO2 into a green force","author":"Horizon Magazine","date":"August 18, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"The major greenhouse gas contributing to global warming could become a prime resource for biofuels that can cut car, plane and ship emissions. 18 August 2023 By\u00a0\u00a0TOM CASSAUWERS Laura Martinelli has bittersweet recollections about a clean-fuels project that she managed. 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It\u2019s part of a strategy to halt global warming by cutting down\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Earth, Energy &amp; Environment&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Earth, Energy &amp; Environment","link":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/category\/earth-energy-environment\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Image Credit - Carbon Recycling International","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/11\/Carbon-recycling-HD-Compressed.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/11\/Carbon-recycling-HD-Compressed.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/11\/Carbon-recycling-HD-Compressed.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/11\/Carbon-recycling-HD-Compressed.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/11\/Carbon-recycling-HD-Compressed.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/11\/Carbon-recycling-HD-Compressed.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3327,"url":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/3327\/turning-up-the-heat-on-steels-carbon-pollution-problem\/","url_meta":{"origin":179,"position":5},"title":"Turning up the heat on steel\u2019s carbon pollution problem","author":"Horizon Magazine","date":"November 26, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"EU-funded researchers are testing new hydrogen-powered burners that could slash emissions from one of the world\u2019s most carbon-intensive industries \u2013 without shutting down production. 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