An argument for waste to energy bioreactors over incinerators #biology #ecology #ecosystem #preservation #recycling #bioremediation
An argument for waste to energy bioreactors over incinerators #biology #ecology #ecosystem #preservation #recycling #bioremediation #protest #arwil
An argument for waste to energy bioreactors over incinerators #biology #ecology #ecosystem #preservation #recycling #bioremediation #protest #arwil #awillis4 #hashnode
This article is not tech heavy in a software perspective but it is tech heavy in an industrial hardware perspective and its content is still pertinent to technology in the sense of how well we can understand and emulate nature. It also handles some of the negative repercussions of technology, including the recycling of circuit boards.
By #arwil on #hashnode
What is an incinerator and how does it produce energy
An incinerator is a facility that burns waste materials at high temperatures, reducing the volume of the waste and converting it into ash, flue gas, and heat. Here's how it works and how it can produce energy:
1. Waste Collection and Sorting: Waste materials are collected and sorted. In some facilities, recyclables are separated from non-recyclable waste before incineration.
2. Feeding and Burning: The sorted waste is fed into the incinerator's combustion chamber, where it is burned at temperatures typically between 850°C and 1,100°C (1,562°F to 2,012°F).
3. Energy Recovery: The high temperatures in the combustion chamber generate heat, which can be captured and used to produce steam. This steam can then be used to drive turbines connected to generators, producing electricity. This process is known as waste-to-energy (WtE) or energy-from-waste (EfW).
4. Emission Control: The flue gases produced during combustion are cleaned to remove harmful pollutants. This typically involves several stages of treatment, including filtration, scrubbers, and catalytic converters, to ensure that emissions meet environmental standards.
5. Byproducts: The ash produced during incineration is collected and can be disposed of in landfills or used in construction materials. Any remaining flue gases, after treatment, are released into the atmosphere.
By converting waste into energy, incinerators help reduce the volume of waste sent to landfills and generate electricity, contributing to energy production and waste management.
The downsides of waste incineration
Positive Impacts
Waste Reduction: Incineration significantly reduces the volume of waste that needs to be disposed of, which can help alleviate the burden on landfills, but it does not eliminate the waste entirely.
Energy Production: By converting waste into energy, incinerators can generate electricity and heat, providing a renewable energy source and reducing reliance on fossil fuels.
Reduction of Greenhouse Gases: Properly managed incinerators can reduce the release of methane from landfills, a potent greenhouse gas. This can help mitigate climate change.
Negative Impacts
Air Pollution: Incineration can release harmful pollutants, including dioxins, furans, particulate matter, and heavy metals, into the atmosphere. These pollutants can have adverse effects on human health and the environment.
Greenhouse Gas Emissions: While incinerators can reduce methane emissions, they can still produce carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases during the combustion process.
Toxic Ash: The ash produced by incineration can contain toxic substances, which need to be carefully managed and disposed of to prevent environmental contamination.
Resource Inefficiency: Incineration can discourage recycling and waste reduction efforts if it is viewed as an easy disposal solution. This can lead to a less sustainable approach to waste management.
High Flash Point: the incinerator will require highly flammable substances and conditions such as high temperatures to function. This means that it has a high startup energy requirement which is costly each time it is started. The high temperatures provides a high risk environment to everyone who works at such a facility, fires can spread quickly if not maintained. The high temperatures causes alot of wear and tear on equipment, which must be replaced quickly and often to avoid disasters. Monitoring must also be very sophisticated and constant as temperatures can rise rapidly.
Mitigation Measures
To minimize the negative impacts, modern incineration facilities often incorporate advanced emission control technologies, such as:
Scrubbers: To remove acidic gases.
Filters: To capture particulate matter.
Catalytic Converters: To reduce nitrogen oxides and other pollutants.
Additionally, policies and regulations can help ensure that incinerators operate within strict environmental standards, reducing their overall impact on the environment.
So obviously, these facilities also produce toxic waste. These waste products are artificial, and are usually sedimented in landfills anyway.
The waste to energy bioreactor for sewage treatment
Waste-to-energy bioreactors primarily use anaerobic methods to produce energy, but aerobic methods can also be employed in certain contexts, particularly for composting and biological waste stabilization. While aerobic processes are not typically used for direct energy production, they play a role in waste management and energy recovery indirectly.
Aerobic composting is a method where organic waste is broken down by microorganisms in the presence of oxygen. The process involves the following steps:
Waste Preparation: Organic waste, such as food scraps, yard trimmings, and agricultural residues, is collected and prepared for composting. This may involve shredding or mixing to ensure proper aeration and moisture content.
Aerobic Decomposition: Microorganisms, such as bacteria and fungi, break down the organic waste in the presence of oxygen. This process generates heat, which helps to accelerate decomposition and kill pathogens.
Temperature Control: The composting process is carefully managed to maintain optimal temperatures (typically between 55°C and 65°C or 131°F and 149°F) to ensure efficient decomposition and pathogen reduction.
Turning and Aeration: The compost pile is regularly turned to ensure adequate oxygen supply and to distribute heat and moisture evenly. Aeration can also be achieved through forced-air systems.
Final Product: The end result is a nutrient-rich compost that can be used as a soil amendment to improve soil health and fertility.
Energy Recovery
While aerobic composting itself does not produce direct energy like anaerobic digestion, it contributes to energy recovery and environmental benefits in the following ways:
Reduction of Landfill Waste: By diverting organic waste from landfills, aerobic composting helps to reduce methane emissions, a potent greenhouse gas produced by anaerobic decomposition in landfills.
Soil Enrichment: The compost produced can improve soil health and fertility, reducing the need for synthetic fertilizers. This can lead to energy savings in the production and transportation of fertilizers.
Biogas from Mixed Systems: In some integrated waste management systems, aerobic composting is combined with anaerobic digestion. The stabilized waste from the aerobic process can be further treated in anaerobic digesters to produce biogas, thus enhancing overall energy recovery.
Aerobic methods, such as composting, play a vital role in sustainable waste management by stabilizing organic waste, reducing landfill emissions, and producing valuable compost. While they do not directly generate energy like anaerobic digestion, they contribute to overall energy efficiency and environmental benefits.
Benefits of waste to energy bioremediation over incineration
Both waste-to-energy (WtE) bioreactors and incineration have their merits, but here are several benefits that WtE bioreactors offer over incineration:
1. Environmental Impact
Lower Emissions: WtE bioreactors produce fewer air pollutants compared to incineration. Anaerobic digestion primarily generates biogas, which can be captured and used, while incineration releases flue gases that need extensive treatment to control harmful emissions.
Reduction in Greenhouse Gases: Anaerobic digestion in bioreactors produces biogas, which can be captured and used as a renewable energy source. This helps reduce the reliance on fossil fuels and can lower greenhouse gas emissions. Incineration, on the other hand, directly emits CO2 during combustion.
2. Resource Recovery
Nutrient-Rich Digestate: WtE bioreactors produce digestate, a nutrient-rich byproduct that can be used as an organic fertilizer. This supports sustainable agriculture by recycling nutrients and helpful bacteria back into the soil.
Biogas Utilization: The biogas produced can be used for electricity generation, heating, and as a renewable natural gas substitute. This offers a versatile and clean energy source.
3. Energy Efficiency
Higher Energy Recovery: WtE bioreactors are more efficient in converting organic waste into usable energy. The biogas produced is a clean and efficient fuel that can be used in combined heat and power (CHP) systems to generate both electricity and heat.
Reduction of Energy-Intensive Processes: Bioreactors eliminate the need for energy-intensive waste disposal methods, such as landfilling, by converting waste into valuable resources that can be entered right back into nature
4. Operational Benefits
Lower Operating Temperatures: Anaerobic digestion operates at lower temperatures compared to the high temperatures required for incineration. This results in lower energy consumption and operational costs, higher safety, and less need for monitoring or inspection
Scalability and Flexibility: WtE bioreactors can be scaled to different sizes and integrated into various waste management systems, making them suitable for both small and large-scale applications.
5. Waste Management
Organic Waste Diversion: WtE bioreactors are particularly effective at managing organic waste, diverting it from landfills and reducing the environmental impact associated with landfill disposal.
Less Residual Waste: The digestate produced by bioreactors is typically less problematic to manage compared to the ash residue from incineration, which can contain toxic substances.
Summary
While both technologies have their place in waste management, waste-to-energy bioreactors offer several advantages over incineration, including lower emissions, higher energy recovery, lower energy to start, nutrient recycling, and greater operational efficiency, and safety. These benefits make bioreactors a more sustainable and environmentally friendly option for managing organic waste.
Benefits of waste to energy bioremediation of plastics using plastic eating bacteria
It turns out that there are bacteria discovered that are efficient at digesting plastic. Waste-to-energy bioremediation of plastics using plastic-eating bacteria offers several benefits:
1. Environmental Impact
Reduction of Plastic Waste: Plastic-eating bacteria, such as Ideonella sakaiensis, can break down plastics like polyethylene terephthalate (PET) into simpler compounds. This helps reduce the accumulation of plastic waste in landfills and the environment.
Lower Emissions: Bioremediation processes typically produce fewer harmful emissions compared to traditional waste management methods like incineration.
2. Energy Recovery
Biogas Production: During the breakdown of plastics, some bacteria can produce biogas, which can be captured and used as a renewable energy source. This biogas can be utilized for electricity generation, heating, or as a natural gas substitute.
Efficient Energy Use: The energy required for bioremediation is generally lower than that for incineration, making it a more energy-efficient process.
3. Resource Recovery
Recycling of Plastics: The breakdown products of plastics can be repurposed to create new plastic materials, promoting a circular economy. This reduces the need for virgin plastic production and conserves resources.
Nutrient Recovery: Some bioremediation processes can recover valuable nutrients from waste, which can be used in agriculture.
4. Sustainability
Eco-Friendly: Bioremediation is a natural process that uses microorganisms to degrade pollutants, making it an environmentally friendly approach to waste management.
Scalability: Bioremediation can be scaled to different sizes and integrated into various waste management systems, making it suitable for both small and large-scale applications.
The different kinds of plastic eating bacteria to be used in these bioreactors
Due to their biodegradative and biosyntheticcapabilities, sphingomonads have been used for a wide range of biotechnological applications, from bioremediation of environmental contaminants to production of extracellular polymers such as sphingans(e.g., gellan, welan, and rhamsan) used extensively in the food and other industries. The shorter carbohydrate moiety of GSL compared to that of LPS results in the cell surface being more hydrophobic than that of other Gram-negative bacteria, probably accounting for both Sphingomonas' sensitivity to hydrophobic antibiotics and its ability to degrade hydrophobic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. One strain, Sphingomonas sp. 2MPII, can degrade 2-methylphenanthrene. In May 2008, Daniel Burd, a 16-year-old Canadian, won the Canada-Wide Science Fair in Ottawa after discovering that Sphingomonas can degrade over 40% of the weight of plastic bags (polyethylene) in less than three months.
Rhodococci also contain characteristics that enhances their ability to degrade organic pollutants. Their hydrophobic surface allows for adhesion to hydrocarbons, which enhances its ability to degrade these pollutants. They have a wide variety of catabolic pathways and many unique enzyme functions. This gives them the ability to degrade many recalcitrant, toxic hydrocarbons. For example, Rhodococci expresses dioxygenases, which can be used to degrade benzotrifluoride, a recalcitrant pollutant. Rhodococcus sp. strain Q1, a strain naturally found in soil and paper mill sludge, contains the ability to degrade quinoline, various pyridinederivatives, catechol, benzoate, and protocatechuic acid. Rhodococci are also capable of accumulating heavy metal ions, such as radioactive caesium, allowing for easier removal from the environment. Other pollutants, such as azo dyes, pesticides and polychlorinated biphenyls can also be degraded by Rhodococci.
The diverse metabolism of wild-type strains of P. putida may be exploited for bioremediation; for example, it has been shown in the laboratory to function as a soil inoculant to remedy naphthalene-contaminated soils.
Pseudomonas putida is capable of converting styrene oil into the biodegradable plastic PHA. This may be of use in the effective recycling of polystyrenefoam, otherwise thought to be not biodegradable.
Pseudomonas putida has demonstrated potential biocontrol properties, as an effective antagonist of plant pathogens such as Pythium aphanidermatum and Fusarium oxysporum or radicis-lycopersici.
Pestalotiopsis microspora is a fungus that is known to be the most effective when it comes to penetrating the exterior of a polymer product or polyurethane and dissolving it through the oxidizing enzymes that it possesses. Although this is an amazing discovery, it has mostly been monitored in laboratory settings and still needs more experimentation to use on a wide scale for landfills and clean-up areas.
Salipaludibacillus agaradhaerens is a facultative anaerobe bacterium. It is a gram positive, alkaliphilic and alkalitolerant, aerobic endospore-forming bacteria.
In 2019, it was found in a hyperalkaline spring in Zambales (Philippines) a bacterial consortium of a strain of Bacillus agaradhaerens with Bacillus pseudofirmus that can biodegrade LDPE plastic.
The aerobic aspect of this bacterium means that it can grow and thrive only in an environment that contains oxygen. Ideonella sakaiensis and other aerobic bacteria therefore survive in oxygen-rich soil that is moist and aerated.
The flagellum attached to this bacterium are used as motile organelles and are able to rotate and thrust the cell throughout its environment by creating motion. The bacterium was also shown to grow on the surface of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a type of plastic, adhering with its thin flagellum. This is shown in the image to the right. The flagellum may also secrete PET-degrading enzymes onto the PET surface known as PETases.
Ideonella sakaiensis is being studied for its PET-degrading capabilities in sewage-fed fisheries. Various strains of this bacterium have been shown not to pose any threat to the growth and cultivation of fish. This species of bacterium makes effective use of PET as a source of carbon, and thrives in wastewater and plastic-polluted water ecosystems, showing its promise as a cost-effective anti-pollutant.
Summary
Waste-to-energy bioremediation using plastic-eating bacteria offers a sustainable and efficient way to manage plastic waste, recover energy, and promote a circular economy. By leveraging the natural abilities of microorganisms, this approach can help mitigate the environmental impact of plastic pollution and contribute to a more sustainable future. For this reason i would like to recommend the protesting and dismantling of any form of industrial waste incinerator and its replacement with an industrial bioreactor power plant. Incinerators are expensive, dangerous and still contribute to landfills, while bioreactors produce more energy, forms of energy storage, do not require flash point ignition, and do not contribute to landfills.
References
energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2019/08/f66/BET..
eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-biogasconve..
consumerenergycenter.org/energy-from-waste
discovermagazine.com/environment/its-in-the..
microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/ij..
livescience.com/605-immortal-polystyrene-fo..
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3165411
microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/ij..
repository.ukwms.ac.id/id/eprint/31911/1/2-..