Making waste economic feasible

As part of the circular economy, there is an increasing interest in converting waste streams into feedstock (hydrocarbons) and energy carriers (biogas, syngas, oil, heat, hydrogen). The program Building Blocks from Waste aims to match under-utilized residual streams with the most suitable conversion technologies.

Our main goal in this program is to exchange knowledge and expertise on innovative technologies to assist the owners of (complex) residual streams in judging on – or distinguishing between – the applicability of different technologies, or the potential market of the resulting (mixture of) components.

Making waste economic feasible

Participants indicate that low economic feasibility and lack of market for the products are the main reason for the low valorisation potential. Also, the need for a continuous high volume and the fluctuating prices are hurdles.

Other challenges mentioned are:

Waste incineration is too cheap, hindering better technologies to develop
Getting same legislation for waste incineration as for other emitting industries
Scale-up towards commercial scale
Fate of contaminants in the streams
Additional side-streams arising from the conversion processes
Finding general solutions for many small streams
Financing

ISPT aims to fill the gap by bringing together the owners of the (complex) residual streams, the innovative technologies and the experts in possible feedstock-process combinations from physical and thermodynamic perspectives. A joint development program will be set-up to accelerate the developments and solve both technical and non-technical hurdles.

Are you among these groups? Please feel free to contact us, we’re happy to share our knowledge.