Report
Teaser, summary, work performed and final results
Periodic Reporting for period 1 - HTCycle (Sewage sludge reuse with Phosphate recovery and heavy metal absorption with an innovative HTC technology.)
Teaser
The stricter limit values for heavy metals and the intention of the Federal Government to abandon the use of agricultural sewage sludge in the long term have considerable effects on municipal water management. Particularly in rural areas that have benefited from soil-bound...
Summary
The stricter limit values for heavy metals and the intention of the Federal Government to abandon the use of agricultural sewage sludge in the long term have considerable effects on municipal water management. Particularly in rural areas that have benefited from soil-bound sewage sludge recycling, the recycling of sewage sludge is becoming increasingly difficult or will no longer be permitted in the future [Tränckner, 2018][DWA, 2015],[VKU, 2015]. For this reason, further scenarios must be created for sustainable and reliable sewage sludge recycling in the future.
The entire sewage sludge recycling industry is undergoing change. The disposal costs for sewage sludge are increasingly oriented towards mono-combustion costs. The disposal costs for the ton dewatered sewage sludge vary depending upon region between 98 and 208 euro. The costs for the legally prescribed phosphorus recycling are not even integrated. HTCycle has invested a lot of time in a clear presentation and processing of the legal and political situation. HTCycle sees itself as the future alternative to sewage sludge incineration and presents its results confidently. In this situation our company HTCycle wants to demonstrate and market our own technology for hydrothermal carbonisation (HTC) of sewage sludge and shows clear technical, economic and economic advantages compared to the current sludge incineration method. We want to increase the amount of sludge converted into high quality products such as activated carbon for water treatment, recycled phosphorus and ammonia as fertilizer. HTCycle protects the conservation of finite resources such as phosphorus and relieves the environment. The HTCycle process reverses the previous practice of sewage sludge disposal from (mono-)incineration as an expensive disposal process to an economically and ecologically sensible business model.
Work performed
HTCycle is in Technical ready Level 9 and has checked, confirmed and or slightly adjusted the technical status achieved so far in the various work packages. HTCycle still uses a lot of project time to disseminate the technology at relevant events such as the regional conferences of the DWA German water and waste water association and other.
Final results
The progress of the project already goes far beyond the known state of the art of HTC technology. First and foremost, the high COD value of the process water, which is always not discussed, should be mentioned. This can be selectively treated by the HTCycle-Strategy in order to recombine the material flows and extract products from them to single conductor limit values.
The same applies to batch control and the heat recovery concept. All the processes described above are now patent pending.
Website & more info
More info: https://htcycle.ag/en/technology_53.