Could this be the future answer to pellet raw material issues

[sstanis]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17075088/

 

[mtarbert]

A few years ago I checked into using the fiber leftover from waste water treatement plants for pellet production and found out the BTU content is nill

 

[Harley]

Interesting.... didn't see where they describe the process, but anaerobic digestion does not sterilize the material... maybe a further process they do does. And remember, a sterile environment is a great place to grow all sorts of bacteria... so.... put that stuff in behind your walls as construction material.... add even a little but of dampness or water.... mmmmmm - bet that will be in nice shape in a few years!!

I think I'd rather see it burned as pellets (even if the BTU's aren't that high), or processed into an organic fertilizer... probably both good alternative uses.... just don't really see acceptance as a construction material.

 

[TMonter]

The main problem with Municipal Solid Waste is that the bacteria remove about 70% of the usable energy in the solid material over a relatively short time. If you dry it to a moisture where it's usable in a pellet burner the energy used to dry the material is not cost effective and the ROR is nil.

 

[Highbeam]

My city's sewer treatment plant seperates and dries the waste sludge into a granular product. The product is straight biosolids without any filler additives. The process includes a burning phase with high temperatures (350?)to boil off water and to sterilize the material. The material tests out as a 4-4-4 fertilizer and has a small large enough pellet to be spread by a whirlybird. I spread a garbage can of it over a few acres of pasture last year. It is very dense and it took two people to lift the full can into my pickup. It has a smell but not like poop.

Even giving the processed material away is cheaper than sending a less refined product to the landfill. The incinerator unit used methane gas from the decomposing sewage to produce the heat.

 

[Kenny1]

Don't know about using animal waste to make pellets. However, according to this report there is some interest in using whole trees to make pellets.



(broken link removed to http://www.workingforest.com/02-news/article.php?id=2724)

Seems the Sweds are setting up pellet operations in BC (although other manufactures don't understand how they can make money on this venture).

 

[Harley]

My city's sewer treatment plant seperates and dries the waste sludge into a granular product. The product is straight biosolids without any filler additives. The process includes a burning phase with high temperatures (350?)to boil off water and to sterilize the material. The material tests out as a 4-4-4 fertilizer and has a small large enough pellet to be spread by a whirlybird. I spread a garbage can of it over a few acres of pasture last year. It is very dense and it took two people to lift the full can into my pickup. It has a smell but not like poop.

Even giving the processed material away is cheaper than sending a less refined product to the landfill. The incinerator unit used methane gas from the decomposing sewage to produce the heat.

Hi, High - my guess would be the process they are using is mixing the biosolids with a high pH waste product (lot's of them around) and they actually pasteurize, not sterilize the material... big difference - that process keeps the good bugs alive while killing off the bad bugs... yup - it does work great as a fertilizer, even with its relatively low #'s - more as a soil ammendment product, and keeps 2 "bad" things out of the landfills. The odor (lol - not "poop" smell) is probably <let's see if I can guess this right> is probably a combination of an ammonia and "wet cement" odor... but - that stuff , when mixed together properly... is actually as good, or better than most any fertilizer you would get, with some organic material