JR Centre for Production of activated charcoal out of communal residues

Coal from wood gas power plants can assume important positions in wastewater treatment. How to provide the powdered coal with the desired properties in the gasification process is the subject of research at this JR Centre.

Wood gas power plants are primarily used to provide renewable energy. The gasification of wood, including waste and residual wood from the municipal environment, also produces powdered charcoal as a by-product. This is currently used as an auxiliary material for slurry treatment (odour reduction), as a soil conditioner and also to stabilise biological processes (biogas and digester gas processes), although the underlying mechanisms are not yet known.

In addition to these unspecific areas of application, it would be desirable to prepare the powdered carbon in such a way that it can also be used for previously unsolved problems in wastewater treatment. This so-called functionalised powdered activated carbon could be used, for example, for the pre-treatment of highly contaminated wastewater, to stabilise digester gas processes, to improve digested sludge properties (dewaterability) and as an adsorbent for drug residues and other micropollutants in wastewater.

This JR Centre will investigate the role of powdered carbon in these processes in more detail. It will also define which additional properties it must have in order to fulfil the required positions. A worthwhile approach in practice would be to change the properties of the powdered carbon by adjusting the process parameters during gasification in order to obtain activated carbon with a larger surface area. For additional physical properties such as polarity or wetting properties, post-treatment can be carried out in an external reactor using various methods such as chemical impregnation and/or vapour treatment. The JR Centre is researching how the gasification process can be modified and what post-treatment of the powdered activated carbon is required to achieve the necessary functionalisation.