Waste to Energy

What is Waste to Energy?

Waste to energy is simply converting waste, whether general rubbish, food waste, animal waste or plant waste, into some form of energy, generally heat or electricity. It is an integral part of creating a sustainable world, to minimise the effect of waste on the environment.

How does Waste to Energy work?

Waste is converted into energy two main ways. Either by burning the waste to create heat energy or using Anaerobic Digestion to break the waste material down and convert it into Biogas. Obviously, the type of waste will have a bearing on the most efficient way to convert waste to energy. Animal and food waste won’t burn as well as plant waste and general rubbish.

At Inoplex, we are experts at converting waste to energy using Anaerobic Digestion to create Biogas, which we then use in our Cogeneration Generators to create both heat and power.

Waste to Energy with Anaerobic Digestion

Anaerobic Digestion is as old as swamps producing gas from rotting debris.

This anaerobic digestion can take place in places like landfill and effluent ponds or in a more controlled environment with Anaerobic Digesters.

The process of waste to energy using anaerobic digestion involves 4 steps:

1. Hydrolysis is the first step in the process and involves breaking down suspended organic matter and large organic molecules into soluble organic matter. This is often the slowest part of the process so it makes good economic sense to add some technology to accelerate up this process.
2. Acidogenesis is the second step in which fermentation microbes further split the soluble organic molecules into volatile fatty acid as well as ammonia, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulphide and other by-products.
3. Acetogenesis, the third step, is where higher organic acids and alcohols produced during acidogenesis are converted largely to acetic acid with some by-products including hydrogen and carbon dioxide.
4. Methanogenesis is driven by two different groups of methanogenic bacteria.  The first group split the acetate into methane and carbon dioxide while the second uses hydrogen and carbon dioxide to produce methane.

Commercial Waste to Energy with Anaerobic Digestion

An indicative process flow for harnessing the anaerobic digestion process in a commercial application is presented below. Its a complex, multifaceted process but with careful, robust design and automatic PLC control with remote access for supervision, the natural biological processes and our engineering components work in harmony to effortlessly convert your organic wastes into water, a reduced quantity of A Grade bio solids and electrical and thermal energies.

So if your business generates organic waste and you’d like to know more about using this for a waste to energy power plant, give us a call on 0448 307 282 or complete our online waste to energy enquiry form today.