Experience and lessons learned from sewage sludge pyrolysis in Australia

Abstract

Management of sewage sludge via "publicly acceptable" methods is becoming increasingly difficult, primarily due to health and environmental concerns with respect to reuse of the product in agriculture. Consequently thermal processes are gaining popularity with significantly increased interest being shown in pyrolysis and gasification processes, due to their "non-incineration status". One such process is the ENERSLUDGE technology which has been developed and commercialised by Environmental Solutions International Ltd (ESI). The world's first commercial ENERSLUDGE plant is located at the Subiaco Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) that was handed over to the client, the Water Corporation of Western Australia in June 2001. Extensive design knowledge and operational experience has now been accumulated from this commercial pyrolysis facility and future applications of the technology will benefit immensely from the lessons learned and experience gained from this facility.

Pyrolysis of Dried Wastewater Biosolids Can Be Energy Positive

“…Besides the aforementioned disposal pathways, there are many other biosolids treatment and disposal technologies in use or under development, such as thermal hydrolysis, anaerobic digestion, thermophilic digestion, hydrothermal processing, gasification, and pyrolysis (Bridle and Skrypski-Mantele, 2004;Chen et al, 2008;Lumley et al, 2014;McNamara et al, 2012). Thermal hydrolysis, hydrothermal processing, and digestion of biosolids are an intermediate processing step which cannot recover all the energy and resources or produce value added products.…”

Energy Recovery from Biosolids and Biomass A Review of Thermal Conversion Technologies

“…Details about the facilities and their current status are shown in Table 7. (Bridle, 2004), 2 (Moller, 2007) Fast/Flash pyrolysis of Biomass: INNOVATIVE Fast and flash pyrolysis are relatively new technologies, having been developed within the last 20 years. Ensyn (Canada), Dynamotive (Canada) and BTG (The Netherlands) are the only vendors with commercial scale biomass pyrolysis installations.…”

Technological options for the management of biosolids

“…Besides oil and char, some researchers focus on syngas production using microwave-induced pyrolysis of biosolids (Domínguez et al 2006(Domínguez et al , 2008. The first commercial biosolids pyrolysis plant was built in Western Australia (Bridle and Skrypski-Mantele 2004). However, this plant has now been discontinued, as the resultant product was found to be unsuitable for diesel engines and the economics of the system were poor (GVRD 2005;USEPA 2006).…”