Why Plasma Arc Gasification?

Cascade Plasma Energy (CPE), Plasma Ark Gasification (PAG) process, has the ability to provide liquid fuels and Electrical Power from a wide range of discarded waste materials. QB Ecology’s PAG processes creates both power and entirely-synthetic fuels, such as synthetic ethanol, methanol, diesel, gasoline and jet fuel. All can all be synthesized from an almost-limitless list of municipal and other waste, (feed stock) of materials.
QBE took on the challenge to reduce and eliminate the continual creation and filling of environmental destroying Land Fills, reduce carbon footprints and improve environmentally-friendly fuel sources. Partnering with some of the top innovators in the field of new concepts, has further evolved our fuel-conversion technologies. All is done by converting discarded waste materials into usable energy with no pollutants. PAG process is a unique way of handling a growing problem. The technology, results are proven to provide:

-- Eliminating land fills with ability to mine existing land fills
-- Creating Jobs
-- Provide a positive image and continual tax base for a community
-- Reduces or eliminates pollution
-- Creates energy/ fuels from municipal waste streams

Plasma Gasification

A Westinghouse Plasma Corp. gasifier will convert a wide variety of waste streams into a clean syngas which can be further altered to create other forms of energy.
A plasma gasifier is an oxygen starved vessel, by introducing municipal waste into the vessel, the feedstock becomes a synthesis gas (syn-gas) using the very high temperatures achievable with plasma arc gasification. Instead of combusting the feedstock or MSW like other lower temperature processes that leave 20% of the feedstock in a ash that still needs to be disposed of, the high temperature of Plasma Arc Gasification breaks down the elements to hydrogen and simple compounds like carbon monoxide and water. MSW then becomes a Syn-Gas.

The syngas created in the gasifier, which contains dust (particulates) and other undesirable elements like mercury, undergoes a clean-up process to make it suitable for conversion into other forms of energy including power, heat and liquid fuels. The syngas clean-up process is tailored to meet the requirements of each project. In most cases, especially where municipal solid waste (MSW) is the feedstock, the syngas clean-up will include particulate removal, sulphur removal and mercury/heavy metals removal.

Plasma gasification differs from non-plasma gasification in one key area – temperature. The temperatures inside a Westinghouse Plasma Corp. gasifier reach over 3000 °C. The higher temperatures inside our plasma gasifier results in the complete destruction of tars.  Non plasma gasifiers typically operate between 800 and 900 °C and cannot eliminate tars during operations.   As it is very difficult to remove tars downstream of a gasifier, the utility of the syngas produced by non-plasma gasifiers is very limited.  Syngas produced by non-plasma gasifiers can be burned immediately to produce power but it cannot be conditioned for use in gas turbines, reciprocating engines or for conversion into liquid fuels.

In summary, a Westinghouse Plasma Corp. gasifier enables the conversion of difficult feedstocks like MSW into a clean syngas that is suitable for use in advanced conversion technologies such as high efficiency gas turbines or next generation liquid fuels technologies. In the near future, we expect to power fuel cells with syngas from our gasifier.