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DURHAM, NC (February 13, 2008) - Officials at Southern Research Institute's Carbon-to-Liquids (C2L) Development Center today announced plans to commission its first advanced energy conversion technology-a system that will convert municipal solid waste from landfills into clean synthesis gas (syngas).
Syngas is a basic energy building block produced from a class of technologies known as thermochemical processes. Once produced, syngas can be converted into clean transportation fuels like ethanol, Fischer Tropsch (FT) diesel, or FT jet fuel, or into chemical feedstocks and electrical power.
"This is one of those unique opportunities to take an environmental problem and turn it into something good for America and the environment," said Stephen Piccot, director of the Carbon to Liquids Development Center at Southern Research Institute in North Carolina. "We desperately need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and develop clean power sources-this process may help us do both."
Engineers at the C2L Center recently designed the core reactor and are assembling a pilot-scale version of the reactor at the C2L Center in Durham, North Carolina. Commissioning of the unit is planned to begin in May of this year.
The pilot plant will process roughly five tons of municipal solid waste per day. After performance testing is completed the scale-up potential will be assessed and optimization equipment will be added. According to Piccot, the system could scale up well for commercial landfill operations, which could conceivably be in the range of from 100 to 1000 tons per day.
"We won't know that quantity until after the system is commissioned and tested but it appears scalable and we believe it has unique advantages that may make it more environmentally-friendly and commercially-viable than standard waste-to-energy processes," he said.
Thermochemical processes can convert carbon containing materials like trash, animal or agricultural waste, industrial or commercial waste, energy crops, and forest waste into valuable end-products. They are poised to play an important role in the bio-energy and clean power industries. The pilot plant at the C2L Center will use a unique thermochemical process designed for converting municipal solid waste which is now being mostly land filled. Once the pilot system is proven and optimized, work will begin on integrating processes for converting the syngas into end products.
ABOUT THE CARBON TO LIQUIDS (C2L) DEVELOPMENT CENTER
The Carbon-to-Liquids Development Center provides independent technical support to clients who are developing and integrating advanced energy systems and transportation fuel production technologies. The facility, a unit of the Southern Research Engineering Division, was established in April 2007 to facilitate the commercial acceptance of environmentally superior technologies that convert domestic non-petroleum and non-food crop carbon resources into high value products like clean diesel, jet fuel, methanol, ethanol and electric power.
The C2L Center is currently developing a number of pilot-scale energy plants which are used to optimize system performance, integrated advanced energy technologies in new ways, demonstrate technology concepts, and develop the data needed to scale-up to full-sized commercial operations. The C2L Center is located on 28 acres in the northern Research Triangle region of North Carolina. It maintains 32,000 sq. feet of high bay process and laboratory space, and 10,000 sq. feet of office space and meeting facilities which can be used to showcase client technologies. For more information, see www.carbontoliquids.com.
ABOUT SOUTHERN RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Southern Research is a not-for-profit organization that conducts scientific research at facilities in Alabama, Maryland and North Carolina. Southern Research provides contract research in the fields of advanced engineering, environmental and energy-related research, and preclinical drug discovery and drug development. For more information, see www.southernresearch.org.