CQU academics look at using waste to generate electricity

Project could potentially service council and greater CQ to supplement electricity supply.

Professor Sergio Capereda and Central Queensland Universities Associate Professor Nanjappa Ashwath discuss turning waste into electricity.

MOST people see a pile of garbage as a problem, but not Central Queensland University academics, who are developing technology to turn waste into gas used to generate electricity.

Led by Associate Professor Nanjappa Ashwath, the project has developed a mobile Bionergy Unit to potentially service Gladstone Regional Council and greater Central Queensland to supplement electricity supply.

Associate Professor Ashwath recently spent seven months in the laboratory of Professor Sergio Capareda, of Texas A&M University in the US, studying the groundbreaking thermal conversion technology using pyrolysis (high-temperature decomposition under oxygen-free conditions) and gasification.

The state-of-the-art technology, developed over three decades by Professor Capareda, can generate heat and electrical power under carefully controlled use of an oxidant in gasification mode.

In what could be the ultimate recycling method, once the gas in generated, it is injected into an engine that generates one megawatt of power continuously.

Currently, Assoc Prof Ashwath said they can process both wet waste by fermentation into gas to produce electricity, and dry green waste which is burned by pyrolysis or gasification to produce Syn Gas, a form of biodiesel and biochar, to purify water.

Now, Assoc Prof Ashwath is hard at work making the unit and liaising with local industries, including Gladstone Regional Council, to assist in research and development.

"With this mobile gasification unit, we could travel to places where waste resources are located, and demonstrate how well we can convert different types of wastes into value-added products such as biofuels and chemicals that can be used as soil conditioners (biochar and bioliquor) and as a precursor for chemical manufacturing (bioliquor, biochar)," Assoc Prof Ashwath said.

"Some of the products can also be used in fuel cells which could have a huge demand in the future.

"Waste can also be converted into another form to replace importing bitumen from other countries."

With a plentiful supply of garbage, Assoc Prof Ashwath has produced the unit to show how we can prevent having piles of waste, emitting damaging greenhouse gases.

"There are plastic bottles, plastic films used in the agricultural industry, cotton gin waste, forestry offcuts, mango and macadamia prunings, and green waste," which can be used as fuel, Assoc Prof Ashwath said.

Construction giant Thiess Australia could be the first Australian company to adopt the technology, which if proven, could soon be adopted by Gladstone Regional Council.

Gladstone Region Mayor Matt Burnett said recovering energy from waste formed part of the Gladstone Regional Council Waste Management and Resource Recovery Strategy, which was finalised last December.

"Council's WMRRS adopts the national and state government policy frameworks for sustainable waste management and resource recovery practices," he said.

"This strategy provides a clear direction and action plan over a 10-year period with a focus on reducing, reusing and recycling waste."

Cr Burnett said the Benaraby landfill had its own small facility to capture gas and generate electricity.

"The Benaraby Landfill Carbon Abatement Project uses a gas extraction and flaring system which reduces methane and generates electricity," he said.