Water and wastewater treatment expert Envirogen Group has been awarded a £1m+ contract by Fortum Glasgow to demineralise water for the boilers at its new South Clyde Energy Centre (SCEC) in Glasgow. This EfW sector project will deploy two of Envirogen’s compact Eco MultiPro units, complemented by pre-treatment and polishing vessels, as the group explains here.

The contract will provide the ultrapure water quality needed to generate 45 megawatts electric (Mwe) of lower carbon electricity from residual, non-recyclable household waste; enough to power the equivalent of around 70,000 homes every year.

And by incinerating household waste to heat the boilers, the plant will prevent up to 350,000 tonnes of household waste going to landfill annually – the equivalent of the waste arising from some 380,000 households. It will therefore meet the Scottish government’s new landfill measure to ban biodegradable municipal waste going to landfill from December 31st 2025 onwards.

Fortum decided on the Envirogen system because of Eco MultiPro’s success in other EfW energy operations, including Vital Energi’s Drakelow EfW plant near Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire.

The complete package from Envirogen comprises its Eco MultiPro based demineralised water system design, supply, installation, commissioning, training and extended warranty. Following commissioning, the plant will produce treated water quality of <0.2 Microsiemens/cm, and <20 ppb Silica at up to 30m³/hr flowrate, achieved by a flow from each unit of 15m³/hr.

Eco MultiPro is a skid-mounted reverse osmosis and electrodeionisation (RO-DI) water treatment system that delivers high purity water, with low operating costs, chemical free operation and a compact design to save space.

Envirogen will deliver the units and pretreatment solution by summer next year, install the equipment in the autumn of 2025 and commission it in January 2026.
Sustainable

Ilkka Toijala, Head of Fortum UK, comments, “Envirogen worked with our technical team to develop a solution that provides a plant capable of supplying reliable water in a time-efficient and cost-efficient manner, aligning with our sustainability objectives. That was helped by Envirogen having a long and proven track record in industrial water treatment.

“We assessed the company’s other Energy from Waste MultiPro solutions and concluded that Eco MultiPro would be ideal water treatment technology for the South Clyde Energy Centre.”
Essential

Demineralised water will be essential for the trouble-free operation of the boilers and turbines.
Simon Radford, Head of Sales, Envirogen Group says, “Steam turbines are highly sensitive to corrosion and scale build-up. Scale-forming ions and suspended solids from mains water can deposit on turbine blades and within pipework, risking damage. Using demineralised water is absolutely crucial. Despite the steam cycle being a closed system, modern boilers still need a steady supply of demineralised water to compensate for inevitable losses due to steam leaks, blowdown and other operational processes.”

Eco MultiPro’s three-stage treatment
Heating water is energy-intensive, and scale formation reduces efficiency. Envirogen’s answer to that is the Eco MultiPro, with its three-stage membrane treatment process – reverse osmosis, gas transfer membranes and continuous electrodeionisation (CEDI). Together, these stages remove all scale-forming ions, ensuring optimal performance and low operating costs.

High quality, no hazardous chemicals
Radford comments, “We worked closely with the plant designer, AFRY, from an early stage to develop a membrane-based solution to match the sustainability needs of the plant. The membranes will allow Envirogen’s ‘state of the art’ MultiPro units to produce high quality demineralised water without having to resort to the use of hazardous chemicals on site.

”Overall, the robust, reliable design focuses on whole life operating costs for both utility and maintenance over a 30-year design life.

Envirogen’s membranes are durable and long-lasting, and so deliver considerable cost savings because they need replacing less often. Additionally, the RO-CEDI skid requires no chemical regeneration, relying instead on a small amount of electricity to renew the membranes. The entire demineralisation process carries a much lower operating cost compared to a conventional resin-bed solution, especially as, in this case, it utilises electricity that is generated on-site.

Energy-from-waste operator enfinium has received its first waste delivery by train at its Ferrybridge site in West Yorkshire this week (9 July).

The group says this milestone expands the area that enfinium’s Ferrybridge 1 and 2 facilities can receive unrecyclable waste from, reduces road traffic and lowers transport emissions. The trial also highlights the potential for using rail freight to connect the plant to a Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) cluster, offering an alternative to pipeline connections.

The rail delivery trial was conducted in collaboration with industry partner, SUEZ recycling and recovery UK, and rail freight and logistics company, Freightliner. Over the course of the weekend around 700 tonnes of household waste delivered to Ferrybridge using pre-existing railhead infrastructure linking back to the site’s heritage as a coal-fired power station.

Using rail freight now enables enfinium’s Ferrybridge site to take more unrecyclable waste from across the North of England, diverting it away from climate damaging landfill. In addition, waste delivery by rail can provide significant environmental benefits. Rail freight reduces road traffic and this delivery alone displaced around 40 waste trucks. It also produces on average 76% lower emissions per freight tonne-kilometre compared to road freight.1 enfinium has committed to reach net zero across its operations by 2033, as outlined in its Net Zero Transition Plan.

This delivery also marks a significant step for enfinium’s CCS and carbon removal plans. In addition to reducing enfinium’s operating emissions, active rail infrastructure opens up the possibility that enfinium can connect to one of the UK’s emerging CCS clusters by rail, rather than pipeline.

enfinium’s Net Zero Transition Plan also sets out the business’s plans to deploy CCS technology across all its sites, backed by a £1.7 billion investment programme. With CCS, enfinium would generate 1.2 million tonnes of high-quality carbon removals each year. Achieving this goal requires effective transport and storage infrastructure for captured CO2. For Ferrybridge 1 and 2, rail has now been established as a feasible transport option that could connect enfinium to the East Coast Cluster or similar storage infrastructure.

Ferrybridge is the largest energy from waste plant in the UK, diverting up to 1.45 million tonnes of waste from landfill and generating 170 MW of energy, enough to power 340,000 homes per annum.

Dr Jane Atkinson CBE, Chief Operating Officer at enfinium, said: “I am delighted that this trial has connected Ferrybridge to the UK’s rail network for the first time. I am grateful for the support of SUEZ and Freightliner in enabling us to achieve this step. It has opened up a range of opportunities for the business to help local authorities around the UK divert their unrecyclable waste away from climate damaging landfill.

“Rail transport is a critical part of our plans to transform our Ferrybridge site into a decarbonisation hub. Not only will greater use of rail reduce our emissions, it marks an important milestone for our carbon capture deployment plans. Transporting CO2 by rail to a coastal cluster for permanent storage offshore is one of the ways we can accelerate the decarbonisation of this strategically important site and help the West Yorkshire region achieve its 2038 Net Zero target.”

Daniel Carolan from SUEZ said: “This is an exciting opportunity for SUEZ, and it builds on the significant experience we’ve gained moving waste by trains elsewhere in the country. Transporting waste by rail helps to reduce road traffic and produces significantly lower emission compared to transporting it by road.

It was great to work with enfinium and Freightliner to make this delivery a reality and see the first waste delivery by train to Ferrybridge. More opportunities to move waste by train allows the industry to think differently about how waste is transported and disposed of.”

Ed Wilson, Commercial Director at Freightliner, commented: “We are delighted to be involved in this important and first of its kind trial alongside enfinum and SUEZ. Freightliner’s ability to build strong, long-standing relationships with our customers allows us to deliver reliable and safe services.

This trial showcases the importance of the development of rail across the UK and beyond in order to support and help achieve key sustainability targets, remove traffic from our busy road network and to support moving more volume by rail.”

The UK’s newest aggregate manufacturing plant has been officially opened in Wellingborough, providing low-carbon secondary aggregate to help meet the Midlands’ construction needs. The plant will transform around 200,000 tonnes per year of incinerator bottom ash (IBA) left over from the energy-from-waste (EfW) process into EcoBlend, a sustainable manufactured aggregate for use in the built environment.

The £20m facility was formally opened by Gen Kitchen, MP for Wellingborough, at a launch event organised by the plant’s joint owners – energy-from-waste business Encyclis and material specialists Day Aggregates – supported by aggregates trading firm GRS, the contracted distributor for the local area.

At the official opening ceremony, the plant was described as a symbol of regeneration, representing significant inward investment into the region. In addition to the 50 contractors per day that were supported during 17-months of construction and commissioning, the plant has directly created an additional nine full-time jobs on-site and will further support the local supply chain.

Gen Kitchen, MP for Wellingborough, said: “I’m delighted to formally open this facility, which represents a significant investment into our region. I’m passionate about the potential of this area as a hub for business, due to its central location, transport links and strong industrial track record. It’s also important that we ensure commercial activity is sustainable and this aggregate manufacturing facility is an excellent example of that, taking a residual material that would previously have been discarded and turning it into a useful material that supports local construction. It’s vital that we promote a more circular economy in this way.”

A strategic partnership between Encyclis and Day Aggregates was established to begin building the plant 18-months ago on a site in the Finedon Road Industrial Estate. The plant’s location offers optimal transport links, while addressing an identified deficit in the local availability of natural resources. This new supply chain for EcoBlend will service local needs with a product that is sustainable, cost-effective and certified to the required specifications.

The project bolsters the circular economy by recycling a by-product of the energy-from-waste process. Encyclis’s energy recovery facilities – Rookery South, in Bedfordshire, and Newhurst, in Leicestershire – provide capacity to annually treat over one million tonnes of residual waste that would previously have been sent to landfill. The waste is combusted at high temperatures to produce baseload electricity, heat and other resources.

After the combustion process, inert ash is left over. This is transported from the two energy recovery facilities to the Wellingborough plant. Day Aggregates extracts any remaining metals for recycling and converts the bottom ash into aggregate products including EcoBlend, which serves as an effective sub-base under pavements, footpaths, car parks and roads.

Materials trading firm GRS is responsible for marketing the products to construction companies looking for cost-effective materials that also enhance the environmental credentials of their projects.

Owen Michaelson, Chief Executive of Encyclis, said: “We are immensely proud to be formally opening this new facility in Wellingborough – which provides the region with essential infrastructure to support the sustainable treatment of waste and the recovery of resources. Both of these are crucial in enabling a more circular economy that accelerates the UK’s progress towards net-zero. The opening of this facility represents real action to help meet those environmental goals.”

Adam Day, Contracts Director at Day Group, said: “Our state-of-the-art recovery and manufacturing facility has the most up-to-date processing equipment, which produces the best quality material as efficiently as possible. EcoBlend will now provide a sustainable solution for the local construction market, reducing the region’s reliance on sourcing and transporting aggregates from out of the area.”

Antony Beamish, Managing Director for GRS Trading, said: “The technology and innovation that’s gone into developing this processing plant is impressive. We’re looking forward to supplying EcoBlend to our customers across the region, to improve the sustainability of the supply chain as part of our collaborative drive towards circularity.”

Disposable e-cigarettes or vapes are big business, they are also a big problem for the environment. David Deegan of Tetronics suggests a solution that’s based on plasma technology.

Single-use, disposable e-cigarettes or vapes are a big problem for the environment, one that is toxic. Since their introduction in 2003, initially as a ‘healthy’ alternative to tobacco, they have created a whole new contaminated e-waste stream. In 2023, over 7.7 million disposable vapes were sold every week, and around five million are discarded weekly in the UK, according to research from Material Focus. Despite many vape shops having facilities to dispose of them safely for recycling, only 17% of vapers recycle them correctly. Many find their way into landfill with black bag refuse or are simply thrown onto the ground. In both cases, they cause harm to the environment as they leach nicotine, fire retardants and other chemicals into the ground.

The problem may eventually go away. The government recently announced a ban on sales of disposable vapes in England, Scotland and Wales to discourage vaping among young people. The ban is expected to be implemented by early 2025, after the industry and retailers have been given 6-months’ notice to phase out supply. Northern Ireland will also consider introducing a similar ban. But that still leaves millions in circulation, a substantial threat to the environment, and the need for an interim solution.

There are some businesses already offering disposable vape recovery and recycling, often as part of a broader electrical waste (WEEE) and small mixed electrical waste service. An effective recycling process comprises three main elements: collection and supply of a viable feedstock stream (in this case a large volume of discarded vapes); a dismantling and processing stage (whether mechanical, thermal or chemical); and a commercial outlet for the recovered products. Without all three, it is hard to make a strong investment business case.
Recovering critical metals and materials from more common e-waste, such as PCBs in computers and larger electronics, is easier both to do and to make a business case for. While disposable vapes and e-cigarettes do contain recoverable metals the process is harder and more resource-intensive because they are so much smaller.

Within their small cases, disposable vapes house a heating element, a microprocessor and a battery, plus a cartridge for the liquid. Most casings are made of plastic which, because it is in an electronic setting, will contain flame retardants.

Because the components are very small, they are difficult to recover via mechanical separation – the typical recycling technique that a waste receiver would use to recover materials from e-waste. The scale of electronics in e-cigarettes makes the return on extracting tiny pieces of copper very low. Where there is iron and copper in the vape, the iron might be seen as a rogue element and devalue the copper being extracted. The process is made more difficult and potentially toxic because of any residual vaping liquid and flame-retardant plasticisers. In addition, a lot of these complex chemicals will be classified as persistent organic pollutants. In short, disposable vapes are not easy to recycle within a normal e-waste process but are highly damaging to the environment if they are not recycled.

One solution to this dilemma is plasma. Plasma is omnivorous – it can destroy plasticisers and plastics and render vaping liquid harmless. It is a proven way to extract critical materials from spent devices, prevent hazardous waste reaching landfill, and create a beneficial by-product.

Plasma is an electrically charged – or ionised – gas. Sometimes described as the fourth state of matter, it occurs naturally in the environment in lightning, sparks from static electricity and the aurora borealis. Plasma is widely used in television and display screens, fluorescent lighting and even arc welding.

Tetronics uses plasma technology in an extensive range of applications from recovering precious metals in catalytic converters to removing the toxicity of industrial materials like asbestos and air pollution control residues.

To recover critical metals from electronic equipment, the process Tetronics uses involves introducing the materials – the e-cigarettes and vapes – into a sealed furnace and employing a plasma arc to apply intense heat and ultra-violet light in a controlled environment. The chemistry separates and recovers the valuable metals, minerals and other materials from the feedstock.

Rather than extensive and labour-intensive dismantling of the component parts, plasma can address the complete vape. The plasma process produces liquid metals which can be tapped off for recovery and reuse, while the inorganics – the plastics, polymers and plasticisers – become a fuel source, and the vape liquids are ultimately exhausted as safe gases in line with emissions protocols.

The Tetronics process denatures any toxic elements into a non-hazardous glass-like material called Plasmarok. Another useful by-product is the energy produced, which can be used to power the recycling process. Nothing is wasted. Furthermore, plasma is powered by electricity which, when sourced from renewables, makes it one of the cleanest thermal processing technologies available.

It is very important to consider the batteries used in disposable vapes. Lithium-ion batteries are used to power a vast range of electrical equipment from electric vehicles to electric toothbrushes. They are ideally suited to recharging and there have been several studies into the rechargeability of the batteries discarded in disposable vapes. Ideally, the production, sale and disposal loop for single-use vapes would be sufficiently closed for these lithium batteries to be re-used up to 300 times, thereby avoiding thousands of tonnes of harmful waste going to landfill. Unfortunately, however, the multi-stage, multi-national supply chain is not that coordinated yet and, with a ban looming, it is unlikely to reach full circularity.

That shifts the focus from recycling and reuse of whole batteries to recovery of the lithium within them; a highly specialised process in which plasma can also play a role. In the Tetronics process, the lithium would be partitioned from the other vape components into the inorganic phase, the Plasmarok. At the very least, the lithium contained within this inert glass is now immobile, removing the potential for explosion or pollution.

Better still, the Plasmarok represents an intermediate source of lithium; providing a raw feedstock for the lithium refining process. Plasma becomes part of the broader supply chain for recovering lithium to make new batteries and add to a robust circular economy for critical materials.
At present, alongside the ban on sales of disposable vapes, the government is exploring regulatory mechanisms to promote the recovery of critical minerals from waste. Defra is actively looking at ways to ensure the producers of vapes properly finance recycling costs when they become waste.

There does need to be a concerted effort to address disposable vapes that involves the recycling sector and more importantly the suppliers – both producers and retailers. They need to take more responsibility for reducing waste and harm to the environment. Were retailers to incentivise people to return disposable vapes, especially younger users, this could have a big impact on the number being carelessly discarded while increasing the volumes available for mineral recovery, and making the whole loop a more sustainable investment.

Energy-from-waste operator enfinium has announced (on 11 April) it is progressing plans to invest around £200 million in carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology at the Parc Adfer energy from waste facility in Deeside, North Wales.

The project could capture up to 235,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) every year, said the group. As over half of the waste processed at the facility is organic, installing CCS would enable the plant to take more CO2 out of the atmosphere than it produces. The Welsh Government’s Carbon Budget makes clear that Wales needs carbon removal solutions to mitigate other polluting parts of the economy to achieve a Net Zero economy.¹

Opened in 2019 in partnership with the five local authorities that make up the North Wales Residual Waste Treatment Partnership (NWRWTP), Parc Adfer currently diverts up to 232,000 tonnes of unrecyclable waste from climate damaging landfill. As recognised by the National Infrastructure Commission, emissions from energy from waste plants are lower per tonne of waste compared to landfill.²

With CCS installed, Parc Adfer will support the Welsh Government’s ambition to have 100% zero carbon power by 2035 and support over 1,000 jobs in the green economy during the construction phase.

The proposal has been put forward for grant support from the UK Government as part of the expansion of their ‘Track-1’ carbon capture programme. The captured carbon will be transported using the pipeline network currently being developed in the region for the HyNet carbon capture cluster, one of the first two priority carbon capture clusters selected for development in the UK.

Mike Maudsley, CEO of enfinium, said: “To deliver a net zero carbon economy, Wales needs to find a way to produce carbon removals, or negative emissions, at scale. Installing carbon capture at the Parc Adfer facility would transform it into the largest generator of carbon negative power in Wales, decarbonise unrecyclable waste and support the green economy in Deeside and wider North Wales region.”

Ben Burggraaf, CEO of Net Zero Industry Wales, commented: “North-East Wales has an exciting opportunity to leverage technologies like carbon capture and hydrogen to produce the sustainable goods and services of the future. It is critical that projects like those at Parc Adfer move forward as quickly as possible to maintain our competitive advantage over other countries.”

Planning and consenting for the Parc Adfer CCS project will commence later this year. The UK Government is expected to provide an update on which projects are progressing through the Track-1 HyNet Expansion programme by the summer.

Notes
1 Welsh Government, “Net Zero Wales Carbon Budget 2 (2021-2025)”, 2021, available here. The report states (p.53): “the scale of the problem we are facing means that reducing emissions is not enough. We must also remove greenhouse gases that are already in the atmosphere.”
2 National Infrastructure Commission, “The Second National Infrastructure Assessment”, 2023, p. 129.

Researchers analyzed solutions implemented in four very different Brazilian cities. Based on the results, they propose the creation of a national carbon credit fund to support sustainable waste management initiatives.

Some 20,000 metric tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) are produced every day in metropolitan São Paulo, with household trash accounting for 12,000 tons and street cleaning (mainly sweeping, open-air market refuse collection, pruning and grass cutting) for 8,000 tons. This amount of household trash corresponds to about 1 kg per inhabitant per day.

The national composition of MSW is 50% organic matter, 35% recyclables and 15% landfill refuse. Efficient MSW management, with processing of organic waste to produce fertilizer and biogas, effective recycling of recyclables, and creative solutions to use part of the landfill refuse, would reduce Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions and serve as an additional source of revenue via the circular economy, which converts waste into resources. However, the rate of MSW reuse is still very low in Brazil (2.2%).

“Improvements such as implementation of technologies that integrate composting, recycling and use of methane from landfills to produce bioenergy could reduce the emissions from MSW management systems by 6%, as a highly conservative estimate, or 70% more optimistically,” said Michel Xocaira Paes, a researcher at Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV) in São Paulo. “That would correspond to between 4.9 million and 57.2 million metric tons of CO₂ equivalent, for annual economic benefits of USD 44 million to USD 687 million in carbon credits.”

He told the news agency Agência FAPESP: “We studied MSW management in six Brazilian cities, four of which we selected to exemplify different routes to innovation in this area: Harmonia, São Paulo, Ibertioga and Carauari. They are all very different in terms of geographical region, size, population and Human Development Index (HDI), among other criteria. Their MSW management systems are also different, but each one has at least one highly interesting innovation.”

Harmonia and Ibertioga have very high rates of waste reuse (56% and 67% respectively). Harmonia, which is located in the state of Rio Grande do Sul in the South region, also features domestic composting, and diverts almost half its organic waste from MSW collection and treatment systems. However, whereas MSW is managed by private enterprise in Harmonia, with a strong emphasis on environmental education and social participation in separating types of waste and in domestic composting for organic food production, MSW management in Ibertioga, Minas Gerais state, is entirely public. The researchers found the governance of its local MSW management system to be robust and noted significant support from the state government for the implementation of sorting and composting units across the state. The results have been very positive in both cases.

São Paulo, the capital of São Paulo state in the Southeast, and Carauari in Amazonas, a state in the North, are worlds apart. São Paulo is the fifth most populous metropolitan area in the world, and half its population lives in São Paulo city. Everything there is huge, including the problems and their solutions.

“Waste reuse in São Paulo is better than the national average but still very low at only 3%,” Paes said. “On the other hand, there are many innovations, such as strong participation by recycling collector co-ops, two material recovery facilities to separate recyclables, organic waste composting units, and power co-generation from landfill methane.”

São Paulo has three sanitary landfills. Two are privately owned, and a third operates as a state concession. The world’s third-largest sanitary landfill, in Caieiras, receives MSW from the northwestern area of the city, the CTL landfill receives MSW from the southeastern area, and the Pedreira landfill receives only street cleaning waste.

The Caieiras landfill has a biogas-fueled thermal power plant, where methane (CH₄) from decomposing organic matter drives electricity generators. CTL burns some of its CH₄ to produce CO₂ and steam (since CH₄ has 21 times the global warming potential of CO₂) and sends the rest to a thermal power plant with which it partners. In 2019, when the study was conducted, these two landfills had installed capacities of 8 megawatts (MW) and 29 MW respectively.

Another important innovation is the installation of 125 collection points across the city. These are known as “ecopoints” and receive not just recyclables (paper, cardboard, plastic, glass and metal) but also trimmings from household plants and trees, construction debris, and larger objects such as old furniture.

“The city also partners with associations of recyclable collectors, who do some separating and partial processing. In 2019, it had 24 co-ops with some 900 workers all told, as well as 1,400 self-employed collectors registered with the relevant municipal department,” Paes explained.

Besides the innovations mentioned in the article, new initiatives have appeared in the city. These are relatively small-scale but can be replicated. For example, Realixo is a firm set up by young university graduates to promote environmental conservation, the circular economy and sustainability. Customers pay a monthly subscription to have their organic and recyclable waste collected by the firm, which separates what it can send to partners for composting or recycling.

At the opposite extreme of the urban spectrum, Carauari has 28,000 inhabitants – 21,500 in the urban area and 6,500 in the rural area and forest. It is located on the Juruá River and is five days away by boat or two hours by plane from Manaus, the state capital. “These distances are misleading. I didn’t find an abandoned population there. On the contrary, they’re highly organized, empowered, and engaged in community management of natural resources, bioeconomy and circular economy initiatives, and sustainability policies. Local associations and groups do a great deal, in partnership with NGOs, universities, government and private enterprise,” Paes said.

A separate article on the study conducted in Carauari was published in Springer Nature’s journal Urban Sustainability, with detailed information on the activities of local communities, mainly Arapaima gigas fishery management and oilseed processing, all of which is integrated in a circular economy, so that waste from one activity becomes inputs for another instead of impacting the environment (read more at: agencia.fapesp.br/36780).

Oilseed hulls are composted, and almost all the arapaima (the giant fish also known as pirarucu) is used, with the viscera being ground up to make feed for turtles, the scales supplying material for jewelry, and the skin going into handcrafted bags, clothing and footwear.

“There’s no such thing as a magic wand to solve the waste problem, but in these four cities we found good practices that can be synthesized in a wide-ranging project with four pillars: local technical and political capacity; environmental education and social participation; collaboration among all three tiers of government [federal, state and municipal]; and local partnerships for innovation,” Paes said.

“From these pillars we derived the proposal to create a national carbon credit fund that would be managed by the federal government with participation by states and municipalities. This fund could be used to support waste reduction initiatives [via domestic composting, for example], conversion of waste into resources via the circular economy, and development and implementation of local technologies for composting, recycling and use of landfill biomethane. All this would help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and stimulate the low-carbon circular economy. It’s a model that can be used throughout Brazil and inspire similar solutions in the other BRICS and developing countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia.”

An article about the study has been published in the journal Habitat International.

The research was funded by FAPESP via a postdoctoral scholarship and via a project coordinated by José Antonio Puppim de Oliveira, a professor at FGV and supervisor of his postdoctoral research.

Energy-from-Waste (EfW) operator enfinium signed an agreement – on 19 March – with green technology company Hitachi Zosen Inova (HZI) to install the UK’s first carbon capture pilot plant at an EfW facility.

The technology supplied by HZI will be a scaled-down, containerised version of the CCS technology that the firm says could be applied to energy-from-waste facilities on a commercial scale. The unit will capture up to one tonne of CO₂  per day from enfinium’s operations at its Ferrybridge-1 site, in West Yorkshire. The trial will run for at least 12 months and will apparently be operational from July 2024.

The aims of the pilot is to demonstrate the use of carbon capture technology at EfW facilities. “Through the pilot, enfinium will be able to compare different amine solvents and collect realistic data on performance, such as CO₂ capture rate, energy consumption, and solvent degradation,” said an announcement.

“The pilot builds on enfinium’s broader ambitions to lead an investment of up to £800 million in Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) at its Ferrybridge 1 & 2 facilities, which together would capture over 1.2 million tonnes of CO₂ every year.¹ With CCS installed, the UK’s largest energy-from-waste site would become one of the largest carbon removal projects in Europe.”²

Mike Maudsley, CEO of enfinium, said: “Installing carbon capture technology on energy from waste facilities is the only way the UK can decarbonise its unrecyclable waste. It also offers benefits including creating durable carbon removals, or negative emissions, at scale and generating reliable homegrown carbon negative power.

This ground-breaking partnership with HZI will allow us to test multiple capture techniques that could in the future be deployed across our facilities at scale.”

Bruno-Frédéric Baudouin, CEO of HZI, added:“It gives us tremendous pride that with the support of the UK authorities and thanks to a strong collaboration with enfinium, we have the opportunity to help move the dial on the nation’s decarbonisation of its waste management infrastructure.

The pilot will contribute significantly to our carbon capture knowledge base, which we are developing across several projects in Europe, and represents an important step not only towards to reducing CO₂ emissions in our industry, but also towards making CO₂ circular and driving down demand for fossil resources globally.”

Minister for Investment and Regulatory Reform, Lord Dominic Johnson said:“The Government is making sure the UK continues to be an attractive choice for green investment, creating jobs and opportunities across the country as we transition to net zero.

“I’m delighted enfinium with HZI has chosen the UK for this pilot project – another win for our country and a huge step to enabling the decarbonisation of the UK’s unrecyclable waste.”

Today’s announcement is the latest development in enfinium’s strategic partnership with HZI, who have provided engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) services to enfinium’s Ferrybridge 1 and 2 facilities. HZI is also acting as the EPC partner on enfinium’s £500m Skelton Grange facility in Leeds, which is due to be operational from 2025.

Notes
[1] enfinium, ‘enfinium announces plans for up to £800m investment in carbon capture project’, December 2023, available here: https://enfinium.co.uk/enfinium-announces-plans-for-up-to-800m-investment-in-carbon-capture-project/
[2] The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change states that biogenic matter (of which half of energy from waste feedstock is) is carbon neutral at the point of combustion. Therefore, if you capture and permanently store carbon dioxide that was taken from the atmosphere as the biogenic material grew, it results in a net carbon removal from the atmosphere or ‘negative emissions’.

Events of recent years have obviously seen thousands of tons of used surgical masks dumped every month without a real vision of how to manage them. Although the world appears to have passed through this period, a serious industrial eco-solution must be developed to deal with the waste.

Researchers are investigating the possibilities of plasma gasification as an eco-friendly technique to convert surgical mask waste into clean energy products.

A recent project in this area was conducted by Kaunas University of Technology (KTU), Lithuania and the Lithuanian Energy Institute.

After conducting a series of experiments, they obtained synthetic gas (aka syngas) with a high abundance of hydrogen.

Gasification allows huge amounts of waste to be converted to syngas, which is composed of several gases including hydrogen, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and methane. “During our experiments, we played with the composition of this synthetic gas and increased its concentration of hydrogen, and, in turn, its heating value,” said Samy Yousef, a chief researcher.

For the conversion of surgical masks, the researchers applied plasma gasification on defective FFP2 face masks, which were shredded beforehand into a uniform particle size, and then converted to granules that could be easily controlled during treatment.

The highest yield of hydrogen was obtained at a steam-to-carbon ratio (S/C) of 1.45. Overall, the obtained syngas showed a 42% higher heating value than that produced from biomass, said the group.

Existing infrastructure can handle it
Yousef’s team researches recycling and waste management, and are always looking for waste that is present in huge amounts and that possesses a unique structure. They have conducted pyrolysis experiments on cigarette butts, used-wind turbine blades, and textile waste. All have shown promising results for upscaling and commercialization. This latest exploration, of the recycling of surgical masks, used a different method.

“Gasification is a traditional waste management technique,” he said. Unlike pyrolysis, he explained, “which is still a new and developing method, we don’t need much investment in developing infrastructure.”

The use of arc plasma gasification, which they have applied to the decomposition of surgical masks, uses high temperatures, and with this approach “we can decompose face masks to gas within a few seconds”.

“In pyrolysis, it takes up to an hour to get the final product. In advanced gasification, the process is almost instantaneous.”

He said advanced gasification techniques, such as plasma gasification, are more efficient in obtaining a better concentration of hydrogen (up to 50%) during synthetic gas production. Moreover, plasma gasification decreases the amount of tar in the syngas, which improves its quality.

Hydrogen-rich gas is better for heating
According to Yousef, plasma gasification is one of the best methods to obtain synthetic gas that is rich in hydrogen.

Different types of hydrogen are classified according to the manner of production: ‘grey’ is obtained from natural gas or methane, ‘green’ from renewables (the power being used to electrolyse water), and ‘blue’ from steam reforming.

“Maybe we could call ours ‘black’ hydrogen, as it’s made from waste?” he said half-jokingly.

The yield of syngas was around 95% of the total amount of feedstock. The remaining products were soot and tar. The main compounds in the collected tar appeared to be benzene, toluene, naphthalene and acenaphthylene. According to the researchers, it can be used as a clean fuel in different industries with low carbon emissions.

The soot was produced in the last stage of plasma gasification. Its main component is black carbon, which can be used for things like energy production, wastewater treatment, and agriculture, or as a filler material in composites.

The researchers believe the method has the potential to be commercialized. Although hydrogen can be separated from the obtained syngas, it can also be used alongside a mixture of gases – as such, it already has a higher heating value than gas produced from biomass.

Commentary from recycling company Geminor

The national BEHG tax on CO2 emissions, which is likely to be introduced from the new year, will be imposed on the local energy recovery industry. “The tax will have consequences for the handling, processing, and direction of the flows of German waste resources,” explains Account and Development Manager at Geminor in Germany, Manfred Rissmann.

A new, national CO2 tax will be introduced in the German market from January 1. 2024, making Germany a pioneer country for this type of tax in Europe. Emissions from waste incineration will thus be subject to a CO2 tax of €40/t in the coming year, rising to €50/t in 2025. The CO2 tax will be charged to the incineration plants and paid in addition to the existing incineration tax.

The new tax will vary depending on certain factors. The most important of these are the calorific value and the percentage of biogenic content in the waste, which will be defined using waste codes.

The challenge of missing codes
In the case of biogenic content, the CO2 tax will vary significantly depending on how the fossil content is taxed. The final cost is calculated from a fixed amount of biogenic content in fractions such as sorted residual waste, commercial waste and waste wood. As an example, commercial waste has a fixed biogenic content of 48.9 percent, while the fossil content is 51.1 percent. Sorting residues are taxed as 50/50 percent biogenic and fossil content, while waste wood is taxed as 95 percent biogenic content and 5 percent fossil content.

The part of the regulations that has created challenges is that biogenic fractions without a waste code are taxed as 100 percent fossil content. Several associations in the German waste industry see this as unfair. To avoid this taxation, they are now demanding that relevant waste codes be established for all waste covered by the BEHG regulations in the future.

Leads to increased exports
‍It is still unclear how the new taxation will affect the industry. However, it is reasonable to assume that the new tax will create challenges for the energy recovery industry in Germany. The most obvious reason is the significant price increase, which will have to be passed on to waste companies, and ultimately to consumers. However, the increased cost of incineration is also expected to affect the waste market to some extent. We cannot rule out increased exports of waste for energy recovery from Germany in the coming year, mainly towards Scandinavia. This will apply to both RDF/SRF and volumes of waste wood for both energy recovery and material recycling.

Another factor is the increased cost of incinerating fossil fractions such as plastics, resulting in increased demand for sorting and treatment facilities in Germany. The new market situation will require a high level of flexibility to find the most economical and sustainable solutions for waste management across Europe.

Good intentions – problematic market
The purpose of the CO2 tax is to promote sorting of waste, thereby increasing the recycling rate in the German market. Such long-term effects are of course welcome. However, any national taxes that are not in line with other EU countries will affect the market and change existing waste streams. The recycling and waste industry needs a predictable and stable market, which is best ensured through a common European regulatory framework where possible. And since Germany is a pioneer in the implementation of the CO2 tax, the international market is best served by the EU now pushing for the same tax in other European countries. In terms of regulations, it would also be useful to prevent all landfill of residual waste in Europe once and for all.

Source: Federal Law Gazette: Ordinance on emissions reporting according to the Fuel Emissions Trading Act for the years 2023 to 2030 (Emissions Reporting Ordinance 2030 – EBeV 2030, Part 5 Standard values for calculating fuel emissions in the cases of Section 2 Paragraph 2a BEHG.

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An Eco MultiPro reverse osmosis (RO) and electrodeionisation (EDI) system from Envirogen Group is supplying the purified, demineralised water required for Surrey County Council’s new Energy from Waste (EfW) power plant at Eco Park in Shepperton, Surrey.

Fundamental to the functioning of the fully-operational combined heat and power plant is a steady stream of high-quality, purified water to protect the boilers and steam turbine against mineral build-up and water loss. The benefits include lower operating costs and increased water treatment plant efficiency.

Eco Park Surrey, built for the council by waste management company SUEZ Group, transforms 40,000 tonnes of food waste and up to 55,000 tonnes of general refuse waste a year into electricity. It does this by using biogas from anaerobic digestion of the food waste and gasification of the general refuse waste.

“The plant supplies electricity to the national grid – enough for 4,262 homes in 2022 – while helping to overcome the growing and common problem among local authorities of how to dispose of waste without using landfill,” says Ian Pearson, European Operations Director, Envirogen Group.

“Although steam cycles are designed as closed systems, modern boilers still require a stream of demineralised water to make up for losses.”

“Scale formation makes steam generation processes less efficient. This is where Envirogen Group became involved with its Eco MultiPro RO-EDI water system technology. Our skid-mounted, modular, automated solution protects the plant’s generator, requires limited operator invention, has the smallest possible footprint and ensures a low operating cost. It’s very well suited for use in EfW plants.

“The Eco MultiPro RO-EDI approach replaces traditional, resin beds-based systems that involve a complex operator-intensive process and equipment downtime. Those systems also carry risks associated with chemical regeneration of the resin beds, which requires chemical handling on-site and the generation of an effluent stream that needs to be treated,” says Pearson.

“In a site, Eco Park Surrey, that is completely focused on reducing waste and doing so in a safe and controlled manner, the traditional approach to water purification wasn’t an option. Envirogen Group’s was.”

Pearson sees a bright future for the provision of demineralised water to power plants like Eco Park Surrey’s. “The EfW market is growing, and governments around the world are looking for novel, efficient ways to meet the energy demands of growing populations. Systems that enhance cost-efficiencies and are simple to operate will positively impact the design and running costs of EfW plants.”

Envirogen’s Eco MultiPro solution is easily transferable to other applications, whatever the fuel, and is capable of providing up to 50m3/hr as standard. It deploys the latest EDI technology in a three-step treatment using reverse osmosis technology, gas transfer membranes and EDI system treatment to remove all scale-forming ions that might impact the efficiency of the plant’s generator. The resulting purified water has a conductivity of less than 0.1 micro siemens (µS), with less than 10 parts per billion (ppb) silica and less than 3 ppb sodium.

For more information visit www.envirogengroup.com for the UK and Europe, or www.envirogen.com for North America.