WaveFuels II

Challenge 

The green transition requires changes in the way we produce, consume, and re-use our resources. In the light of climate change and international turmoil, governments, businesses, and citizens call for solutions that can lead to new energy sources, limit greenhouse gas emissions, and reduce the dependency on fossil fuels from unstable regions. The unfolding climate crisis also demands new and viable ways to remove greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere through carbon capture, storage and utilization. Underlying all this is a quest to identify and develop ways to secure a more circular use of all our natural resources.

Solution 

The WaveFuels II project will test, demonstrate, and optimize Organic Fuel Technology’s technology for microwave cracking products in full scale, thereby making the technology and the solutions it offers ready for full commercialization.

Microwave-cracking with Organic Fuel Technology’s patentedsteer biomass-processing system thus opens a new Power-to-X pathway, where power used to convert sludge and biogas digestate to biofuels and store carbon by utilizing this power as stable and uniform electromagnetic field of a size and strength that has not previously been replicated anywhere in the world.

The technology can at low temperatures convert sludge, biogas digestate and other types of biomasses into valuable end products. The low process temperature contrasts with traditional pyrolysis and this captive electromagnetic field improves the quality of end products significantly.

Microwave cracking technology can therefore, if demonstrated successfully, play an important role in ensuring a better and more circular use of sludge, bigas digestate and other forms of biomass, both in the production of high-quality green biofuels and in creating a new, significant source of stable biochar for carbon capture and storage.

Impact

Organic Fuel Technology offers a modular solution which is therefore easy to scale, reducing plant design costs and enabling easier commercialisation. A single OFT8 processing facility will be able to handle 2,800 tonnes of dry matter per year, corresponding to more than 10,000 tons of biomass with a dry matter content of 25%, and convert this into 1.100 tons of bio-oil and 400 tons of carbon in biochar. A single WaveFuels plant has the capacity to displace more than 4,000 tons of CO₂e from the earth’s atmosphere per year.

In 2035 Organic Fuel Technology expects to operate 30 plants across Europe – these plants will convert wastewater sludge and biogas digestate to biooil and biochar with carbon storage, processing a total of 84.000 tons of dry matter per year with a total CO₂-removal effect more than 128.000 tons per year. The number of plants is expected to increase to 480 across the globe by 2050. Support from EUDP will be crucial in securing a speedy progress towards demonstration of the technology in full scale. It is therefore also pivotal for making possible the long-term growth trajectory of the technology’s roll-out.

This project has 6 partners. Organic Fuel Technology A/S as project and technological lead, Energy Cluster Denmark as facilitator and administrative lead, GreenLab Industry Park as demonstration site host and as a partner for circular symbiosis, Aarhus University as scientific lead, EUROmilling as technology and construction partner and Topsoe as bio-oil upgrading-partner.

The municipal wastewater treatment facility Vestforsyning Spildevand A/S from Holstebro has furthermore provided declarations on cooperation re. deliveries of sludge for testing and commissioning purposes and a statement of intent on longer term cooperation for sludge handling and the commercialization of the technology. The bunker oil trading company Unioil Supply has provided an LOI concerning purchases of Organic Fuel Technology’s bio oil, and Cementir Holding, owner of Aalborg Portland, has provided a statement of interest in cooperation on the use of the end products of microwave cracking as fuels and as an additive to cement.

Partners

Organic Fuel Technology

Aarhus Universitet

EuroMilling

Topsoe

Greenlab Skive

Energy Cluster Denmark