Turning waste into fuel with Hydro Thermal Carbonisation

As a nation, we are learning to reduce, reuse and recycle our waste. In 2019, the rate of recycling in the UK was at 46.2%, up from 45% in 2018. That increase is positive, but what happens to the items we can’t necessarily recirculate?

The majority of it ends up in landfill, never to be used again, but what is more harmful is the gas it produces by just sitting there.

From that waste comes CO2 and the even more hazardous gas, methane, which is 20 times more dangerous than carbon. These gases are being released into our atmosphere at a considerable rate, and this is a significant issue.

So, what would happen if we could take that landfill waste and use it for something else, like fuel?

Here at CPL Industries, we’ve been working with the University of Nottingham at our plant in Immingham to take this landfill waste and turn it into fuel, to heat houses and other buildings. This innovative process is called Hydro Thermal Carbonisation, or HTC, and was the first commercial-scale plant to exist in the United Kingdom.

The project, supported by Energy Research Accelerator (ERA) and Ingelia, can take biomass like food, clothes or garden waste and convert it into bio coal pellets which can then be used as fuel.

The process that the HTC undertakes would typically take thousands of years to complete, but we can do it in a matter of hours with a mixture of high temperatures and high pressure.

The expertise being used at our HTC plants could revolutionise the use of fossil fuels in the future and create a “circular economy” with less waste and therefore reduced gas emissions.