Project financed by the National Center for Research and Development as a part of the 3rd competition for joint research projects under Polish-Chinese cooperation (2022),
Project value (costs of implementing tasks performed by the Polish entity): PLN 2,312,666.26, including financing from NCBR: PLN 2,312,666.26
Project implementation time:
September 1st, 2024 – August 31st, 2027
Project coordinator and project manager at GIG-PIB
dr Krzysztof Kapusta
Department of Energy Saving and Air Protection
e-mail: kkapusta@gig.eu
phone number: +48 696 368 151
Description:
The main goal of the project is to develop a technology for hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) of urban sewage sludge aimed at producing high-value, functional carbon materials along with a method of their separation using the air flotation technique. These materials include graphites, porous carbons, nanotubes and carbon fibers with potential use as electrode materials, e.g. for the construction of supercapacitors and in selective adsorption processes.
Municipal sewage sludge is an inevitable by-product of biological treatment of urban sewage. They constitute a significant waste stream in urban waste management systems around the world. Currently, the leading directions of sludge management are use for agricultural purposes and thermal transformation, e.g. combustion and gasification. A barrier to the use of most thermal methods is the high degree of sewage sludges hydration. This fact strongly affects the energy efficiency of thermochemical processes. Due to the constantly growing demand for advanced carbon functional materials, alternative methods of their production are being sought. Methods based on the use of waste raw materials occupy a privileged place due to the fact that they fit into the assumptions of a closed-loop economy and enable a significant reduction in the costs of their production. One of such methods is hydrothermal carbonization, abbreviated as HTC (Hydrothermal Carbonization). The HTC process is well suited to processing high-moisture materials, such as sewage sludge, because water is used as the reaction medium. The HTC process is carried out in the temperature range of 180-250°C, under pressure resulting from the phase balance of water and is aimed at maximum yield of the so-called biochar with potential use for energy or material purposes. Although the use of the HTC process for the conversion of biomass and waste, including sewage sludge, is the subject of intensive research and development work carried out around the world, this work is mainly carried out in batch process conditions. Due to the significant amounts of sludge produced on a global scale, developing a process in continuous operation conditions becomes a challenge.
The HYDROCARB project involves the development of a continuous sewage sludge HTC process combined with product separation using the air flotation method. Research and development work will be carried out on a group of sewage sludges with diverse physicochemical characteristics.
The HYDROCARB project is implemented in cooperation with a Chinese consortium consisting of:
- Xi'an Jiaotong University
- Huazhong University of Science and Technology
