Waste & Energy

(1) The recycling of household and industrial waste is a worldwide challenge:

The total quantity of solid waste generated in Western Europe represents about 3 300 Kg per inhabitant per year (OCDE):
Split in average into

Municipal solid waste is mainly made up of:

Plastic from municipal and industrial waste represents more than 20 million tons per year in Western Europe (statistics 2004)

(2) Waste Plastic Recycling

Only 47% of plastic waste generated in Europe is recycled: more than 10 million tons are discharged in landfill every year.

Waste plastic recovery processes are:

Waste plastic disposal processes vary strongly over Western Europe countries.

The production of plastic continues to grow worldwide, therefore plastic recycling will continue to be a critical issue.

(3) Waste Plastic Depolymerization: production of EcoFuel

Production of heating oil from plastic waste, an alternative to incineration    

Plastic depolymerization is a proven process developed since more than 10 years by various engineering firms. The current processes are batch operations with limited capacity.

Granit SA has developed a continuous process based on patented technologies. The process includes:

  • the sorting of the solid waste and the selection of plastic acceptable qualities
  • the melting of the plastic under oxygen-free atmosphere
  • the cracking of the plastic molecules into small hydro carbon molecules (C1 to C20)
  • the separation of the lighter fraction for internal heat supply
  • the condensation of the hydrocarbon fuel (C8 to C20) and the separation of undesirable compounds

Industrial lines are being designed to process 20'000 to 30'000 tons of waste plastic per year. The hydrocarbon fuel will be used as heating fuel (industrial or domestic) or heavy machinery fuel.


The first plant will be built in Germany, starting end of 2007. Many other plants are in the planning phase in several European countries.

(4) Municipal waste

The solid waste from households are either incinerated or disposed in landfills, depending on the country. Many landfills are not controled and contain active organic compounds which generate greenhouse gases as methane. Granit has many years expertise through its engineers and its industrial partners in sorting and processing municipal household waste. The processes include:

  • separation of organic and inorganic materials
  • processing of organic material into compost and generation of methane
  • automatic separation of organic materials into recyclable materials
  • processing of waste plastic into hydrocarbon fuel (depolymerization)

Granit has also expertise to collect the gases generated from existing active landfils and to process the methane into energy. This operation, which generates a significant reduction of emission of greenhouse gas, could be financed by CO2 credits.

(5) Processing of organic liquid sludge: Granit Wet Oxidation Process (WOP)

Granit has developed a proprietary process to eliminate (oxidize) the organic part of liquid sludges produced by municipal waste water treatment plants or industrial operations. The process includes the oxidation of the organic compounds in liquid form under high pressure and high temperature (Wet Oxidation Process). Two industrial processing lines built by Granit have been in operation for several years, one in a paper pulp production facility and one in a municipal waste water processing plant.
 


This operation is significantly less expensive than the classical elimination processes which include a drying of the sludge and the incineration of the dried residues.

The mineral residues produced after the Wet Oxidation Process can be recycled, for example in the manufacturing of bricks for the house industry.

The Granit Wet Oxidation Process (WOP), in French: Oxydation par Voie Humide (OVH)

A customizable advanced technology for urban and industrial effluent treatment

   
 
Chemical effluent
treatment plant
CIMO Monthey (CH)
  
Urban sludge
treatment plant
STEP-Orbe (CH)
  
Paper mill effluent
treatment plan
PDL-Thonon (F)
  


Water treatment of biomass processing plants
An integrated solution for the treatment of the waste effluents from a pulp and paper production plant has been installed in France by the Granit Group. This approach includes the separation in the lignin (which is sold), the treatment of the effluents at high temperature in liquid phase (Wet Oxidation Process) and the biologic treatment of the residual organic compounds. The output of this treatment plant is clean water which is discharged directly in the river. This integrated process can be applied to various types of biomass processing plants ranging from traditional pulp and paper units to modern bio-ethanol plants.

Treatment of sludge from public waste water treatment plants
Granit can supply units to treat the sludge stream produced by public waste water treatment installations through its Wet Oxidation Process. A unit is in operation in Orbe, Switzerland demonstrating the value of such a process. Many contacts exist to build similar units in various waste water treatment installations in Europe.

Treatment of difficult industrial liquid waste
In partnership with the company CIMO in Monthey, Switzerland, Granit can offer solutions to treat special industrial liquid waste with its Wet Oxidation Process. Thanks to its laboratory installations, Granit can fully test the operation at small scale then specify and build the full scale equipment.




 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

next