LONDON (ShareCast) - (ShareCast News) - Ultra high temperature gasification waste-to-hydrogen and waste-to-energy company PowerHouse Energy Group announced on Monday that, following the re-commissioning operation of the G3-UHt gasification unit as announced at the end of July, it completed its first extended technical trial of the Distributed Modular Gasification process at the Energy Center of Thornton Science Park.
The AIM-traded firm had previously announced that it had begun a "robust programme" of testing and technical data collection for integration into the process engineering basis of design for the commercial roll-out of DMG.

It said Distributed Modular Gasification is a mechanism for the eradication of waste, the generation of distributed electricity, and the production of distributed hydrogen.

"PowerHouse has long focused on the efficient generation of energy from waste," said executive chairman Keith Allaun.

"However, our ability to generate a concentrated volume of hydrogen from waste, on a distributed basis, sets us apart from others.

"We believe that DMG is critical to opening the door to the coming hydrogen economy."

Operating on a feedstock of tyre crumb, PowerHouse said its engineers were able to demonstrate control of the process at ultra-high temperature which led to the generation of synthesis gas.

According to onsite, in-line analytical instrumentation, the syngas produced was reportedly greater than 50% hydrogen by volume, and the remaining, measurable, constituent elements of the syngas were CO (carbon monoxide) and CH4 (methane).

The in-line gas analysis equipment detected absolutely no CO2 in the gas stream generated by the unit, PowerHouse said.

A more rigorous analysis of the syngas produced in the DMG process would be conducted by certified external laboratories in future trials.

The G3-UHt unit was disassembled following its previous trial for a thorough post-operational review, with the board saying the results of that review led to "minor modifications" of the operational parameters by which the most recent trial was conducted.

Similarly, the board said the unit will again undergo a thorough disassembly, inspection, and evaluation of each individual component of the system to ensure continuity of plan.

"These trials will allow us to manage and maximise the constituent elements of the syngas we create to best serve our business model objectives of delivering hydrogen as a road-fuel," Keith Allaun added.

The company's executive director of programme development David Ryan said that over the course of the past week, and after two weeks of evaluation and refitting of the G3 unit, the system operated "without a hitch".

"Our objectives for this trial - in addition to a successful operation over an extended period - were to begin to hone in on the ideal dwell time for the tyre crumb feedstock in the gasification reactor, the optimal injection of steam at various stages of the process, and, of course, the generation of a syngas of greater than 50% hydrogen.

"The team was successful on all fronts."

Ryan said that, by varying the operational parameters, the company was able to create a syngas with an energy value of over 24MJ/m3, or "an extremely hydrogen-rich" syngas.

"Our design program has benefited tremendously from these results and we're confident in our ability to continue to improve upon them and incorporate the data into our process design."

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