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Thursday, November 7, 2013
Sasol and GE Power & Water have developed a new water technology that will clean waste water, while also providing biogas as a by-product for power generation. This new technology, known as Anaerobic Membrane Bioreactor Technology (AnMBR), will be further developed at a new demonstration plant at Sasol’s R&D Campus at its Sasol One Site in Sasolburg.
The new technology in AnMBR involves anaerobic micro-organisms that are able to live in environments devoid of oxygen, such as sediment layers on floors of lakes, dams and the ocean. These organisms are almost ubiquitous – found in the human digestive system, under the earth surface, deserts and mountain peaks, to name a few.
Sasol currently uses aerobic microbes to treat GTL and CTL effluents in ORYX GTL, Qatar and Synfuels, Secunda facilities.
One of the by-products from the Fischer-Tropsch (FT) process is an effluent stream rich in organic acids and alcohols. Traditional (aerobic) treatment technologies treat this effluent by converting the organics to carbon dioxide. The benefit of the AnMBR is that the micro-organisms convert these organics into a methane rich bio-gas which can then be used for power generation. This then results in an overall efficiency improvement in the GTL process. By converting the effluents to a valuable product (power) there is a resulting improvement in the GTL value proposition. Another benefit of the AnMBR is that it produces almost 80% less waste biosolids than the previous generation process.
The treatment of GTL derived effluents is complex and challenging. Sasol pioneered the treatment of effluents from the GTL process in Ras Laffan, Qatar, where effluents are treated and recycled for use as irrigation water in the city of Ras Laffan.
Sasol’s second generation offering, which is currently being designed for the US GTL facility, is the aerobic Membrane Bioreactor (MBR). The AnMBR helps maintain the company’s leadership position in this field by converting wastes into value-adding products.
Micro-organisms break down complex organics, such as proteins and carbohydrates through a process called hydrolysis, to simpler building blocks, such as sugars that provide food to the micro-organisms. The waste produced is bio-gas, which can be used as feedstock to generate power.
Sasol has been developing the technology for a number of years and has seen promising results. Its partnership with GE is aimed at leveraging GE’s ecomagination qualified ZeeWeed 500 membrane and decades of membrane bioreactor experience and Sasol’s expertise in biological treatment of FT derived effluents.
Bench scale test work has been on-going for the past year with promising results and with the construction of a pilot plant at Sasol’s R&D facilities this improves the potential for commercialization of this technology.
It is anticipated that the technology will be commercially ready early-2015. Sasol will have exclusive rights to apply this technology to FT based plants whilst GE will have the right to market the technology for other industrial uses.
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