Wednesday, December 1, 2010

No. 205: Low temperature carbonization plant from Toshiba (December 2, 2010)

Toshiba participates in the sewage and sludge treatment business with its newly-developed low temperature carbonization plant. The new plant can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 80% as compared with the currently widespread incineration plant. The company also developed the technology to use the treated sludge as fuel. Because domestic sewage plants burn sludge at about 850 degrees centigrade, they emit a large amount of carbon dioxide in the burning process and generates industrial wastes like incinerated ashes. Toshiba’s new plant burns sludge at a medium temperature between 500 and 600 degrees centigrade for carbonization. Besides reducing the carbon dioxide emissions by more than 80%, carbonized sludge can be sold as fuel to heat power plants to reduce the operation cost. Toshiba verified such vital factors as treatment efficiency in the pilot plant in Kyushu last year. Toshiba’s new plant with a treatment capacity of 50 tons per day will be priced between 100 million and 200 million yen. Sewage sludge is reported to reach between 70 million and 80 million tons annually and account for nearly 30% of domestic industrial wastes in Japan. Treatment of industrial wastes is a tremendous financial burden to local governments. The company wishes to get several orders after 2011 and explore the possibility of expanding the market overseas and being entrusted with the management of a sewage and sludge plant in the future.

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