Bio En Holdings's

Gasification: The GPV or “Titmas Process” grew out of the need to meet the inherent failures of incineration and gasification processes. The problems arose from complications in recovery of first stage combustion energy (complex heat exchanger failures) incidence of toxic emissions from chlorinated and toxic inclusions in the feed stocks, char and clinker interference with continuance ash extraction, low “on line availability (less than 75%) failure to meet permit standards during start up and shut down protocols and an overall failure to “scale up” beyond weekly batch operations larger than 100 tons per day. Despite the known technical failings of gasification, promoters continue to garner investment of significant funds which will fail on observing the traditional problems have not been resolved. Examples of these failures include Brightstar, Thermoselect, Siemens-Fürth, Range Fuel and others to name just a few. The losses to investors ranged from $200 million to $500 million US.

Mechanical Heat and Pressure: The generic family of processing materials, known as the “pump and tank” mechanical means of inducing higher temperatures in fluids via pumping and heat exchangers includes: wet oxidation (Zimproet. Al.) pyrolysis, acid hydrolysis (both concentrated and dilute). All have in common the use of heat to crack, decompose or make digestible complex organic debris – basically similar to cooking foods for the same reasons. The most common practitioner of these arts was the Zimpro process which built over 200 commercial plants between 1960 and 1990. Of these only 5 are still in operation by virtue of cannibalization of parts from other units. Again, the problems revolve around “on line availability,” mechanical complexity, moving parts, operator challenges and low yields. Attempts at strong acid hydrolysis in lieu of wet oxidation had the added complication of acid destruction of containment vessels. Yields in all cases were low due to the time period to manipulate the combination of the cellulose to sugar reaction (the combination of higher temperatures and acidic conditions) and complex mixtures of thick cellulosic semi-solid pastes obligated by the costs of pumping and containment. The longer the reaction, the more sugars were destroyed before extraction.

Enzymatic Conversions: Rather than solve the problems of acid hydrolysis researchers moved to the more academic fields of enzyme enhancements which to date have turned out to require the use of expendable proteins for the saccharides conversion. Enzymes also held the promise of continuous academic study which also had a peculiar advantage in the research fields. Lignin remains problematic and some attempts are at hand to separate cellulose, hemi cellulose and lignin prior to further processing. Most of these are pursuing agricultural raw materials. The same problems of the processing of incoming MSW remain the same, noting that many components of agri-wastes and MSW share many characteristics and processing challenges in common. The real shortfall occurs from the seasonality of agricultural cellulose sources and the costs to collect and transport adequate quantities of agricultural chaff.