Put Some Trash in Your Tank

In NGC a documentary shown two scientists processing urine to recover good/potable water. They even attempted to taste the output.

While we are so disparate for water,air, fuel and like natural resources, is not any attempts taken in the past or in the present to convert/recover fuel from human refuse, which is abundantly available.

I don't refer the gas that is recovered in soil treatment plants which is used as fuel for engines/pump. I mean the solid waste itself...

It look to me that for unknown reasons we are not tapping this potential re(f)use - f for fuel...

There is little fuel value in sewage treatment waste solids. It is far better used as a soil improver/fertiliser.

A well-run sewage works is a net exporter of electricity.

I think Science has finnaly caught on!!!!

But what is the process of converting trash into gas.... is there any way in the future that we can just put trash in our tanks????

Here in the UK we are already experimenting with this and so far we are producing quite a lot of fuel, so we just have to wait and see if this technology is a viable solution.

Spencer.

The diesel engines used for burning the sewer gas (recovered from waste digesters) performance suffered when the gas was too "wet", thus the process of "drying" the gas should produce water for distilling for drinking in addition to the gas and solids from the waste being combustible to produce electricity or steam.

One of the ways to process waste is to dilute it (adding water from rivers, etc) to acceptable levels.

I think using corn to produce ethanol is a waste of the food supply and it would likely raise the cost of corn and corn related products like beef, pork, chicken etc.

Waste products can indeed produce some ethanol, but they seem to better at producing natural gas (methane). Granted, the gas would need to be dried. But that is a simple process. Most any hydrocarbon can produce methane. At about 600 degrees F, it produces a lot. At about 1600 degrees F then most everything breaks down to ethanol, methane, fertilizer, crude oil, diesel and water.

"and it would likely raise the cost of corn and corn related products like beef, pork, chicken etc."

Likely ? It's been doing this for this for about 2 years. Where have you been?

Toomuchfun here! I have read the first 6 post responses. Food costs are rising faster than the Yellow River in China, along with the other two associated rivers behind the three gorges dam. Fuel costs are the responsible issues. More expensive fuel to farm, more expensive to transport, and more expensive every where fuel costs can be even remotely related. However: expecting fuel produced from any landfill operation to have a direct impact, influencing the price of road and farm fuels is just a fairy tail. But, it can be recovered and put to very good uses. Locally a natural fertilizer composting company has set up operation at our county landfill site. It uses methane recovered from the landfill operation in its processing of dairy cattle waste. And the County Govt. has determined that it is in the best interest of the County to construct an asphalt production facility on site. This will provide a use for the shreaded tires that the county collects and save the County money in its road and municipal repair budget, and provide another need for the methane recovery. I'm sure that local sewer disposal facilities could also find a home near Landfills as nobody wants one in their back yard. Their production of fuel sources could be added to the mix. Enough would make such an enterprise a possible success. There are likely other manufacturers that emit ugly smells that are the result of the production processes that also might benefit from such an available fuel source. They would only have to be near enough to said landfill to make the connection cost effective.

But not in my car or truck! I believe in the Oxy-hydrogen technology that is gaining support by the masses, even tho there are some from the main stream that believe not.

TMF

With so much congested population of human and vehicles in cities in india and shortge of petrol/gas/diesel, why not recycle the human & animal waste both solid-liquid and convert into gas to automotive usage. Anyone thought of this solution.

All industries especially Railway stations, Factories, Cinema Halls, Hotel, Hospitals, Schools, Colleges etc where the humans are concentrated should be compelled to have a gassification plant

The sewage line can be the gas stations.

The cities will be clean and automobiles will remain clean.

No ozone depletion, no dependancy on petroleam products.

The gas you seem to be referring to is methane. Unfortunately this gas is quite carrosive. It can ruin a typical ICE fairly quickly. I would think that at least the cylinder heads, liners, valves and pistons as well as the rings would all have to be manufactured from a high grade of stainless steel. Some sort of stainless steel fuel delivery system would also be needed. However it does burn quite well, and likely could be well put to use generating heat for boilers for the steam generation of electricity. It can be used for home/business heating as well as cooling via the ammonia evaporation system. It also might be cost effective to compress it and use it to power steam locomotives and like transportation systems.

Just a thought.

TMF

How can methane be corrosive? (not "carrosive"). It burns in the same way as other hydrocarbons and obviously has the same combustion products. CNG and LPG powered engines have been around for decades. The engines are no different from ordinary gasoline engines - apart from the fuel injection system. Are you getting confused with methanol?

Please except my apology for misspelling of the word corrosive, I simply misplaced one of my" fingers," I only use "two" for typing. However if you would like to see corrosion of ferris metal occur very quickly, I suggest you gather some of the body waste that you have referred to and place it in a suitable container suspend a piece of iron above the material and cover it with a piece of plastic and let stand for about a week. Then check for corrosion. Aboriginal types from every continent have gathered dung and used it as a fuel source for ages. While this process does produce a little ash, it is the methane that is producing the flame/heat.

To successfully use methane for automotive fuel in any method other than an open flame requires expensive filtering and drying equipment.

TMF

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You can be sure that methane is not the culprit in corrosion of ferrous metal (not "ferris"). Methane from the decomposition of trash, manure, waste etc. will contain all sorts of noxious by-products, e.g. hydrogen sulphide. It is these that cause corrosion.

complaining about peoples spelling or grammar is an easy way to cause that person to become acrimonious to you. Toomuchfun makes a good point, in short there may be corrosive qualities to the gases collected from dung, as it would be difficult to separate said gases economically. Lets face it, the days of cheap fuels are behind us and arguing between ourselves won't help. If we had a concerted effort to produce a viable fossil fuel alternative, then perhaps the days of the oil companies are limited!

We already use tons and tons of recycled material for good uses. It would seem to me that with the still over flowing land fills we could try and find as many ways to use all the waste we can. I truely belive that it will save trees, water, and air.

good day.. is it possible to utilize methane for cooking instead of LPG's..?? would it be cheaper in the long run?? would the facilities & equipment worth the investment in this venture.?? just curios... we have a big problem in garbage.. jst thinking of ideas.. thnx

One day...or if any of you know...can we just put tras directly into our tank????

I'm actually in the process of designing a plastics recycling center...and as I looked at different methods to process plastics waste..I ran across an article about a foreign company that is taking plastics waste and converting it using a backwards engineering method to convert it into a 95 octane fuel source.

Once processed, the cost of this new fuel source is expected to be 20% cheaper than following the normal process. As an added benefit, they are able to use grades 4 through seven in recyclables...which are difficult to recycle. It burns cleaner, and has been tested (and passed) EPA-based testing methods.

Penn State is currently researching a method of converting agriculture's "dirty plastic" into a usable fuel source. They are working in conjunction with a Korean company who is in the process of developing a boiler system that will run off of these pellets. The fuel sources has been named "plastofuel".

With all the changes that have been happening with recyclables...maybe someday we will pull into the dump and say,"fillerup"!:)