Independent commercial trial indicates operational cost savings of 30%
SITTINGBOURNE, England - 30th April 2009 - Aquafuel Research Limited, the specialist in renewable power innovation, today announced the completion of successful first-phase trials of new technology for low-cost treatment of polluted gas in diesel engine electricity generators running on landfill gas.
Landfill gas, like sewage gas and bio gas, contains corrosive hydrogen sulphide (H2S), which shortens the life of the lubricating oil in the engines used for electricity generation. Aquafuel’s technology works by doubling the life of the engine’s lubrication oil, resulting in lower downtime, plus substantial reductions in operational costs and lube oil consumption.
Aquafuel has developed and field-tested the new solution, which delivers cost-effective protection to lube oils in standard diesel generators. It works by treating only the vital 5% of gas which enters the crankcase, and does so for less than 1/10 of the capital and running cost of conventional scrubbing systems.
Aquafuel’s technology also senses and remotely monitors the H2S levels in the incoming gas, and automatically adapts its dosing to match. This means no waste of consumables through fixed rate over-dosing, and no lube oil degradation.
The European trial site has very high levels of H2S in the incoming gas flow. The trial ran successfully for over 1,000 hours, during which the lube oil consumption was reduced by 57%. The engine was completely stripped and independently examined, verifying no adverse effects from the technology. Due to longer gaps between oil changes, the associated engine downtime was also reduced by about 50%, giving further operating cost benefits.
“Landfill gas is an important energy source worldwide. Unlike natural gas its electricity is renewable, and it prevents emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas,” said Paul Day, CEO and Founder of Aquafuel Research. “Our cost effective technology makes electricity from landfill gas, bio gas and sewage gas more competitive by dramatically lowering operational costs.”
Aquafuel is now continuing second-phase trials on the same site to validate the automatic dosing system. Consumables used to treat the gas will be automatically monitored. All signals will be uplinked to the web, so that the remote site monitoring system can be validated.
The detailed running costs will be calculated at the end of the full trial, but results indicate savings for the operator in the region of 30%. All phases of the trial are being independently monitored and verified by an independent consultant, and a full report will be available on completion. The solution will be commercially available in the third quarter of 2009.
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