create
energy from waste
together
The world is full of unutilized waste. While we already recycle much of this waste, a greater part is still considered unusable. Example of agricultural waste are wheat straw, corn stover and sugar cane leaves. Clean agro-residues are typically sold as animal feed or used as fuel for biomass power plants, but many other streams remain unused. Some are used for composting others are simply abandoned on the fields. Nevertheless, valuable fuels and other useful products can be made from these streams, but it requires a different perspective, a different way of thinking, and that's what we do.
Biofuel
We help our customers to turn this waste into high-quality biofuels, which can be used to either generate sustainable energy, like electricity or heat, or produce bio-based chemicals. With the TORWASH® system, we remove almost all water and harmful salts from the solids, a crucial first step in making high-quality fuel, with the same quality as clean – valuable – wood pellets that are now used in biomass power plants. And because our fuel is made from waste, it is much cheaper and does not require trees to be cut down. Additionally, biogas can be generated from the filtrate water, making the process energy-neutral. The system is also easily integrated with the customer's existing operations.
Each waste stream requires its own approach, but more than 15 years of testing at TNO has taught us that the most challenging agricultural residues provide the best results. Let's see what we can create together. For example, we have made clean fuel pellets for export from plantation waste in the tropics. Problematic substances that power plants struggle with, are removed and may be reused as fertilizer. In short, by removing contaminants from our process and turning them into nutrients, we make the local cycle complete again and prevent plantation soil depletion.
Peat Substitute
Another outside-the-box idea is to make a peat substitute from roadside grass and reed harvest. In the lab, we have successfully made a material from grass that is virtually identical to peat. Let's start with reeds and invasive plants that are now removed from ditches and canals. This material is actually on its way to becoming peat. It takes Nature a thousand years, but TORWASH® can do in 10 minutes. And you can make biogas from the juice. Under natural conditions biogas is slowly released as swamp gas. You just have to think differently. As a bonus, when you stop mining wetlands for peat, it's not just nature conservation, but these wetlands can start absorbing CO2 again instead of emitting it.
It can be done, but it requires a different way of thinking. We approach our customers' processes differently so that we can create impact together. By thinking outside the box, we try to make our customers' production processes more efficient and create value from their waste. In this way, we make the World more sustainable and reduce the emissions of nitrogen and CO2.