ENERGY ENVI GROUP SE

PGR PLASMA

ENERGY ENVI GROUP SE

How to make sure that people and companies treat the environment responsibly?

Is money still more important than preserving natural resources?

Did you know that innovative technologies can harmonise economic criteria with responsible treatment of the environment?

The European company Energy Envi Group SE was established with the aim of seeking and helping to implement project solutions using innovative technologies.

EFFECTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENTWaste, including dangerous waste, is generated

on a daily basis in households and industry. The potential benefits to be derived from applying a comprehensive solution to these issues are therefore truly significant. Considering how we handle waste and whether additional waste is generated or the environmental impact is increased during waste disposal is worthwhile.

What do we do with waste that currently impacts negatively on the environment, yet we continue to produce it?

Our aim is to respond to similar questions and support the production of technologies that are safe and provide maximum long-term benefits for society.Recycling – collecting, separating, and recycling waste for further processing. An excellent solution with growth potential.

What do we do with waste we cannot recycle?

Landfill - vusing existing or creating new landfill sites ranks among the worst solutions.

The waste in landfill sites does not cease to exist or negatively impact on the environment simply because we no longer see it. We threaten our supply of potable water with unchecked dangerous substances and release greenhouse gas emissions generated inside landfills into the atmosphere.

Can we eliminate the waste in landfills differently or reclaim it?

Incineration - various types of waste, including dangerous waste, are incinerated in conventional waste incineration plants. This is another ineffective solution that fails to use the energy potential of waste.All waste incinerators burn, and therefore consume oxygen for the incineration process. Fumes are only purified with filters and all remaining emissions are released from chimneys. Waste is incinerated at low temperatures and additional burdens, such as dangerous fly ash and slag, are thus created.

Can we make this process more effective and eliminate its negative effects?

Depolymerisation – transformation of specific types of waste into higher energy level products. A very good partial solution. Depolymerisation works at lower temperatures, producing tar and soot, and its application is limited to specific types of waste.

Can we improve this technology?

Plasma gasification melting is currently the most effective and environmentally friendly method for processing numerous types of waste without additional negative impact on the environment.

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PLASMA TECHNOLOGY FOR PROCESSING WASTEMillions of tons of waste are generated annually

throughout the world – municipal waste, as well as dangerous waste (chemical, oil, hospital waste, sludge from WWTP, etc.). Some of this waste is reclaimed, some incinerated in waste incineration plants, and a major part, particularly dangerous waste, is stored in controlled dumpsites. In addition to newly produced waste, vast quantities of dangerous waste are stored and impact on the environment, and are a time bomb threatening to trigger environmental disasters.

Waste incineration is one of the most frequently used thermal waste processing methods. While conventional incineration produces heat and reduces the volume of waste, it also generates fly ash and slag, which then must be stored at controlled dumpsites. In addition to solid residues, incineration produces pollutants including primarily SO₂, HCl, NOX, and PCDD/F. Electricity can only be produced through waste incineration using high-temperature fumes and steam. The rate of waste to energy conversion through incineration is low. Temperatures during incineration range from 850 °C to 1200 °C.

A relatively new method for disposing almost any type of waste (except for radioactive waste) is based on melting and gasification of waste in plasma equipment, during which all organic and plastic waste components are gasified, producing syngas with a high content of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Raw syngas also contains metals, chlorine, and sulphur (if present in the waste). These substances are captured during the gas purification process and neutralised in the form of a useful product (mercury, sodium chloride, plaster, etc.). The cleaned syngas can be further used in power engineering and the metallic and non-metallic waste components produce two liquid products – metal alloy and cinder (vitrification product), which have further industrial uses. Any dangerous waste components are locked in the glassy cinder matrix. Cinder has a neutral impact on the environment (shown in ecotoxicity and leaching results). Plasma reactors with various output levels have been designed and constructed for industrial purposes based on more than twelve years of development and practical experience in processing numerous types of waste.

Plasma gasification has been introduced and used worldwide with success for several years. Competing manufacturers of plasma equipment use the technology based on a plasma burner with an independent electric arc - plasmatron. As this technology has relatively low thermal efficiency, up to 30%, effective and economical use of plasma devices requires large quantities of processed waste (more than 100 thousand tons per year).

Chemical compounds (including cellulose/paper) contain basic chemical elements – hydrogen,

carbon, and oxygen. Dangerous substances contain additional elements, such as chlorine and sulphur, and the chemical bonds and arrangement of these molecules are important.

As plasma processing breaks down complex chemical compounds into the basic molecules and elements, burning does not occur, and substances gasified in this manner are purified in equipment for syngas purification. Sulphur is captured efficiently and after reaction with lime is used to produce plaster. Chlorine reacts with NaOH to produce sodium chloride (salt). Various types of material and input substances, from wood and municipal waste to dangerous waste, can therefore be processed with plasma devices.

Examples of chemical compounds:

Cellulose: (C6H10O5)nPCB–polychlorinated biphenyls: C12H10-XClXYperite: C4H8Cl2S

Solvents:

Toluene: C6H5-CH3

Dimethylformamide: H-C(=O)N(CH3)2

Dichloromethane: CH2Cl2

VITRIFICATION PRODUCT

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PROCESSING VARIOUS TYPES OF WASTEPlasma gasification achieves excellent results in

disposing various types of waste. Mixed municipal waste is the most frequently occurring type of waste. Sorting municipal waste, removing inert materials, pre-drying and crushing the waste is recommended to ensure stable syngas production and the minimum required calorific value of fuel. This type of certified fuel obtained from municipal waste is called RDF (Refused Derived Fuel). This method allows us to operate in symbiosis with the current trend of waste sorting and use only waste that would otherwise be destined for landfills. Gasification of municipal waste reduces its volume to 2 to 8% of its original mass.

The added value of plasma equipment is particularly high in processing dangerous waste, including hospital waste. In this case, we operate in a hermetically sealed processing cycle minimising the potential contact of operators with the dangerous material. The patented system for dosing, heating, and disinfecting the dosing device ensures effective and, most importantly, safe handling of this type of waste.

Sludge produced in wastewater treatment plants (WWTP), and ash and slag produced by waste incineration plants are additional types of dangerous waste we can process effectively. After adding silicon dioxide to the input material, we can seal all dangerous substances contained in ash and slag in a glassy cinder matrix. This vitrification product is not harmful to health or the environment, meets stringent leaching and ecotoxicity limits, and the vitrified cinder can be used, for example, to manufacture vitroceramic products owing to its excellent physical and chemical properties. Studies and analyses of the inputs and outputs are available (vitrification product – leaching, ecotoxicity).

Plasma gasification is also suitable for processing old environmental burdens (from chemical, oil and heavy industry, such as tars). Tars are the by-products of oil processing technology combined with sulphuric acid that have been used in the past. These materials thus contain a dangerous mix of hydrocarbons and sulphuric acid. It is the high content of hydrocarbons that makes tars a suitable fuel for plasma devices and we achieve excellent results in processing this type of waste. Furthermore, tars in either liquid or solid form are relatively easy to dose in the equipment.

Melting electric waste and recycling precious metals is another option for using plasma devices. Brass, copper, platinum or other precious metals are the final product of melting and subsequent processing of alloys, depending on the requirements of the end client. Alternatively, precious metals contained in the alloy (gold, silver, platinum, etc.) may be extracted in a different technological process.

Iron ore processing produces large amounts of dust, fly pollutants, and waste. Processing companies are unable to utilise this waste, although metals

account for more than 20% of its volume.These amounts of metal can be extracted from

this waste effectively, efficiently, and ecologically using plasma technology.

We are confident that awareness of plasma devices will increase over the next few years and this technology will be used to a greater extent, particularly to dispose old burdens and dangerous waste. We offer inspection of these devices, demonstration of their operation, testing samples of waste from clients, and producing analyses in the case of standard waste. We always design comprehensive customised solutions for the specific needs of each client in cooperation with global leaders in power engineering (SIEMENS, MAN, OPRA), gas and water purification (TREMA, VEOLIA), and industrial gas production (MESSER).

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PGR PLASMAOur PGR plasma equipment operates on the basis

of a plasma burner with a dependent electric arc and achieves thermal efficiency of around 70%, as the plasma is formed directly in the reactor by nitrogen passing through an electric arc. This high efficiency allows us to work effectively with significantly smaller volumes of waste, while still achieving excellent economic parameters. The PGR equipment meets the environmental protection standards in all aspects. As the plasma equipment operates in a nitrogen (or argon) protective atmosphere without oxygen access, burning does not occur during the gasification of organic substances and plastic materials at high temperatures around 1800 °C (the temperature in the plasma core is up to 5000 - 8000 °C). Instead, complex molecules are chemically decomposed into basic elements (hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, potentially chlorine and sulphur). Once cooled and purified, these basic elements are used to produce syngas, as mentioned above. Syngas can be used in power engineering to produce electricity and heat in a power engineering unit (combustion engine of a cogeneration unit, gas turbine, steam turbine, etc.), or can be liquefied to synthetize methanol or extract hydrogen.

This unique method of waste disposal allows operation of the equipment without chimneys typical for conventional waste incineration plants. Fumes are only produced in the final combustion of syngas in gas turbines with emission concentrations far below the emission limits stipulated by the relevant emission standards. No gaseous or other products posing stress on the environment besides the fumes referred to above are produced in this process.

The PGR equipment can also operate under a so-called island mode, i.e. the equipment can be entirely self-sufficient in terms of energy supply, while also producing methanol or hydrogen. The device is designed to be as compact as possible (so-called container design). The advantage of this type of design is significantly simpler installation of the equipment at specific locations and reduced dependency on input energies (electricity, natural gas, etc.). Once waste at the relevant location has been processed, the equipment can be transported to a new location (for example for processing environmental burdens). In this case, the energy content of the processed waste needs to be taken into account, in particular the content of carbon and hydrogen in waste. Knowing the composition of the waste to be processed is essential for these purposes.

In certain cases, where eliminating an environmental burden (such as processing asbestos, pesticides, tars) is the main added value of the process, electricity production is irrelevant and power supply for the equipment may be provided from the electricity distribution network, or electricity may be produced for the equipment with a gas turbine

using other fuels (natural gas, kerosene, oil, etc.).We currently manufacture plasma equipment

in three output versions - PGR 600, 1000, and 2500. The number attached to the product name indicates the input for the equipment (600 kWh, 1000 - 1200 kWh, and 2500 - 3200 kWh). The waste processing capacity ranges between 3000 (PGR 600) and approximately 30 000 tons per year (PGR 3200), depending on specific types of waste, their calorific value, and composition. The entire system is designed as modular, i.e. multiple PGR devices can be combined to achieve the required output for processing the relevant volume of waste. In addition, modularity of the system allows several types of waste with different dosing to be processed simultaneously, thus achieving high efficiency and short technological downtimes (the equipment is capable of working 8000 to 8400 hours per year). Solid, liquid, and gaseous waste can be processed in PGR equipment with the appropriate configuration of dosing and filling.

The power engineering unit uses the combination of a gas turbine, steam turbine, and heat recovery unit to utilise waste heat from the turbine. Equipment for synthesising methanol or hydrogen is supplied as an alternative to the electricity producing unit.

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N₂ Input: Nitrogen (Argon) - Plasmaforming Gas

CO Input: Waste

S, Cl, F, Hg, ... Output: Syngas

Plasma Arc

H₂ Graphite Cathode

CO₂ (controlled) Graphite Anode

Input material (Waste) Reactor Coat

Output: Slag (Vitrite) and Alloy

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VERSIONS OF TECHNOLOGICAL UNITSComplete technological lines for processing

waste are always designed for specific types and forms of waste. The core of the system comprising a plasma reactor with a dosing system (dosing liquid, gaseous, and solid waste) and systems for purifying syngas or fly waste from gasification is the main part of each technological unit. The line is equipped with systems for crushing and drying the input material depending on specific types of waste. When processing waste without organic substance content (such as asbestos and inert materials), syngas usable for power engineering is not produced. In this case the technological line does not include a power engineering unit. Equipment operating in this mode does not produce any gaseous emissions or solid

waste products (diagram no. 1). When processing waste containing organic substances (such as RDF, plastic materials, tars), the technological line includes a power engineering unit comprising a gas and steam turbine or a cogeneration unit. In this case, the emphasis is on the equipment covering its own energy consumption and any excess electricity may be used commercially. Technology operating under this mode only produces emissions from combusting syngas, in particular CO₂ (diagram no. 2). Production and synthesis of gaseous and liquid products (CO, methanol, H₂) from the excess syngas is a solution alternative to the electricity production for commercial purposes by combusting syngas.

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Diagram no. 1

Diagram no. 2

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Material Dosing System (Waste)

Gas Purifi cation System

PGR reactor

Energy Block (Gas Turbine)

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CASE STUDIESA case study of an actual project for processing RDF waste with an annual volume of 56 000 tons,

processing dangerous waste with an annual volume of 22 000 tons, and processing electrical waste with an annual volume of 2000 tons, is provided below to illustrate the options for operating plasma equipment and its parameters:

PROCESSING RDFThe technological unit comprises 2 plasma reactors PGR 2500, equipment for purifying syngas, a power

engineering unit including gas turbine with an output of up to 7 MWh and steam turbines with a combined output of 2.5 MWh, and equipment for synthesising methanol.

Installation parameters:• Waste processing capacity: 56 000 tons/year• Average calorific value of waste: 19 MJ/kg• Electricity production (gross): 9.1 MWh• Electricity consumption: 5.8 MWh• Electricity production (net): 3.3 MWh• Production of industrial methanol: min. 1800 litres/hour

PROCESSING DANGEROUS WASTEThe technological unit comprises 2 plasma reactors PGR 1000, equipment for purifying syngas, a power

engineering unit including gas turbine with an output of up to 2 MWh and a steam turbine with an output of up to 0.7 MWh, and equipment for synthesising methanol.

Installation parameters:• Waste processing capacity: 22 000 tons/year• Average calorific value of waste: 11 - 21 MJ/kg• Electricity production (gross): 2.7 MWh• Electricity consumption: 2.5 MWh• Electricity production (net): 0.2 MWh• Production of industrial methanol: 680 litres/hour

PROCESSING WASTE FROM ELECTRICAL APPLIANCESThe technological unit comprises 1 plasma reactor PGR 250, equipment for purifying syngas, cogeneration

unit with an output of up to 300 kWh, and equipment for refining bronze and copper.Installation parameters:

• Waste processing capacity: 2000 tons/year• Average calorific value of waste: up to 11 MJ/kg• Electricity production (gross): 350 kWh• Electricity consumption: 320 kWh• Electricity production (net): 30 kWh

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ENERGYENVI

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ENERGY ENVI GROUP SE

Address: Václavskénáměstí846/1 11000Praha1 CzechRepublik

Website: www.eegse.euEmail: info@eegse.eu