Pyrolysis

Pyrolysis is basically heating in the absence of oxygen and can be executed as low or fast pyrolysis; whereas the first technology will be mainly used to produce oil, the second is the technology used for the production of a “biochar” as main product. Low means also really low in terms of it will take time to get to the desired result and the process needs a less high temperature, thus making it more efficient in terms of produced quantities. The temperature will depend on the wished end product: torrefied material requires a temperature of 280 to 350 °C, whereas carbonization will be using a temperature between 350 and 500 °C. The production time and operational parameters will depend on the specification of the wished end product.

Ground kiln in Africa

Char in typical white bags in developing countries

Worldwide charcoal is produced using this technology in so-called ground kilns, as it requires only very little investment. These kilns are not very efficient and produce a lot of emissions both to the environment and the people! SR2.0 has developed with her sistercompany CharcoTec a new multi retort kiln with no emissions to the environment nor to the people. This sound slike a batch process which basically it is, but by using multiple kilns the system still produces char on a continuous basis.

An artist view of such a multiple retort installation is shown here below and contains 8 kilns running in parallel, they are sequentially loaded, fired and cooled after the production, which takes an estimated 8 hours. This installation is calculated to produce ~ 2.500 tons of carbon particles per year.

The picture shows the kiln part of the installation, not shown are all machinery which may be needed for the pretreatment (drying, shredding and pelleting or briquetting, potentially even washing to get rid of unwished acid components in the feedstock) and after treatment (pelleting or briquetting mainly) of the raw material and the coal depending on the specifications of the client. This part maybe requiring even more investment than the carbonization part, which basically represents a simple straight forward but safe design and basically even could be produced in most local shops over the world

Vortex Reactor SR 2.0

The second technology, fast pyrolysis, requires a higher reaction temperature and takes place at a much higher heating rate; it prefers therefore smaller particles for an optimal result and requires a constant feed. It will produce as main product oil, which needs further treatment to be converted in usable and practicable commodity at a rather high investment. It will however allow to convert a broad array of combustible waste materials like plastics, i.e. SR2.0 has the ideal reactor for the fast pyrolysis process, but it will need to be developed further. This reactor is a so-called Vortex reactor, which will secure a fast moving rotation of the feed material at the desired high temperature thus ensuring very turbulent and well stirred environment with maximum temperature control. Because of the short residence time the feed should be buildup of rather small particles.