The new JV, AEG CoalSwitch, will hold the global intellectual property rights for the fuel manufacturing process, for which 16 ‘greenfield’ technology patent applications have already been filed. AEG will assist the commercialisation of AEG CoalSwitch and will contribute to its working capital funding prior to the company raising capital.
The partners in the new JV claim that the fuel processing system, which BEE has been developing for the past seven years, possesses the potential to be utilised in traditional coal-fired power plants as a direct replacement for coal, as well as being mixed with coal in co-firing operations. This in turn eliminates the necessity for plant owners and operators to invest in hugely expensive and time consuming furnace handling and storage modifications.
The process cleanses the raw biomass material by removing salts, minerals and other contaminants, converting it into valuable, high-energy, fuel feedstock without the low and medium volatiles resident in other biomass fuels, such as ‘white pellets’. It can not only be utilised on any plant or wood-based raw biomass material, but also on previously unusable or economically unviable waste timber, such as that produced from AEG’s forestry and wood chip processing activities, contaminated or redundant industrial residues, such as sawdust, demolition and construction materials and even chemically-treated wood such as railway sleepers. The finished fuel can be delivered in a range of compacted formats, including pellets, granules, briquettes or bales, and contains similar thermal and friability characteristics to coal, enabling it to immediately be used in existing coal-fired power stations without costly retrofitting, reconstruction or output losses.
Moreover, it can be handled and processed at power stations utilising the same equipment currently used to handle and prepare coal.
At present, the use of fuels derived from biomass is constrained, due to the presence of excess moisture and entrained salts and minerals. Furthermore, the bulk and energy densities of biomass are too low to justify high handling and transportation costs. The high volatile content of biomass also precludes its use as a coal substitute in pulverised coal plants while the size and crystallinity of the cellulose polymers limit the availability of sugars necessary to the production of liquid fuels and chemicals.
The process developed by BEE removes the light volatile organic compounds (VoCs) from biomass, thereby lowering the risk of costly and dangerous mill fires. It also decrystallises and hydrolyses the cellulosic polymers while maintaining the monomeric sugars, thereby increasing the throughput and yield of digestion and metabolising production methods.
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