The Chariton Valley Biomass Power Project, sponsored by the U. S. Department of Energy Biomass Power Program, has the goal of converting switchgrass grown on marginal farmland in southern Iowa into electric power. Two energy conversion options are under evaluation: co-firing switchgrass with coal in an existing utility boiler and gasification of switchgrass for use in a carbonate fuel cell. Thi...

The United States is embarking on a national program to develop accelerator transmutation of high-level radioactive waste (ATW) as part of the Transmutation Research Program (TRP) project at its national laboratories. Through the TRP, the U.S. joins international efforts to evaluate the potential of partitioning and transmutation along with advanced nuclear fuel cycles. The TRP is aiming to dev...

Energy recovery from municipal solid waste plays a key role in sustainable waste management and energy security. However, there are numerous technologies that vary in suitability for different economic and social climates. This study sets out to develop and apply a multi-criteria decision making methodology that can be used to evaluate the trade-offs between the benefits, opportunities, costs a...

Living systems use fuel-driven supramolecular polymers such as actin to control important cell functions. Fuel molecules like ATP are used to control when and where such polymers should assemble and disassemble. The cell supplies fresh ATP to the cytosol and removes waste products to sustain steady states. Artificial fuel-driven polymers have been developed recently, but keeping them in sustain...

Salty food waste is difficult to manage with previous methods such as composting, anaerobic digestion, and incineration, due to the hindrance of salt and the additional burden to handle high concentrations of organic wastewater produced when raw materials are cleaned. This study presents a possibility of recycling food waste as fuel without the burden of treatment washing with water by pyrolyzi...

Treatment of solid waste continues to be on the political agenda. Waste disposal issues are often viewed from an environmental perspective, but economic and social aspects also need to be considered when deciding on waste strategies and policy instruments. The aim of this paper is to suggest flexible and robust strategies for waste management in Sweden, and to discuss different policy instrumen...

Post-consumer carpet represents a high volume, high energy content waste stream. As a fuel for co-firing in cement kilns, waste carpet, like waste tires, has potential advantages. Technological challenges to be addressed include assessing potential emissions, in particular NO emissions (from nylon fiber carpets), and optimizing the carpet feed system. This paper addresses the former. Results of...

The authors introduced waste plastic pyrolysis oil (WPPO) as an alternative fuel characterized in detail and compared with conventional diesel. High density polyethylene, HDPE, was pyrolyzed in a self-designed stainless steel laboratory reactor to produce useful fuel products. HDPE waste was completely pyrolyzed at 330-490°C for 2-3 hours to obtain solid residue, liquid fuel oil, and flammable ...