Not Sexy, But Practical

Biocarbon is not fusion power.  It is not a drop in fuel for cars, but it is a clean, carbon neutral drop in fuel for coal power plants and a feedstock for plants that can economically make other fuels including gasoline.  Coal is a combustible rock formed from prehistoric biomass.  Our process basically speeds up the clock of converting biomass to coal.  Unlike coal, biocarbon produces little harmful sulfur, no mercury emissions and has significantly less nitrogen.  Also, there are no mine tailings to manage.

Biocarbon is produced by elevating the temperature of biomass in a low oxygen environment (pyrolysis).  This breaks the bonds of cellulose and lignin with the remaining product containing a high percentage of carbon.  Our process, hydrothermal carbonization also known as wet pyrolysis, unlike traditional dry pyrolysis methods is carried out in water under pressure. In contrast to dry pyrolysis we do not have to dry the biomass before processing, biomass can be directly processed after cutting.  Hydrothermal carbonization gives off little gas and has a significantly higher carbon efficiency (carbon in verses biocarbon out).

Handling of biocarbon can easily be done by equipment commonly found on the farm.  Biocarbon is hydrophobic and can be stored by just laying it in a pile on the ground.  It can also be trucked away when desired.  Large quantities of intermittently produced methane, gasoline, diesel or electricity would cause problems for the farmer for storage, transmission or transportation.

The biocarbon produced by ASE Industries using hydrothermal carbonization is of high quality.   Below is a table of compositions of typical US coals (Table 1) and a table showing the composition of the biocarbon produced by ASE Industries (Table 2).  A report from the lab ASE Industries used to have its biocarbon analyzed can be viewed on the pull down menu page “Biocarbon Analysis”.

Click on table to enlarge. Click on back page to return.