RE: Seeking help and information about bioremediation

["Emmanuel de Broux" <EMM_DE_BROUX@msn.com>]

Rachel,

Although I cannot answer your questions about bioremediation, I have the 
feeling that this process can bring only a partial solution to the problem. 
But there is another way of handling it with thermolysis.
 
Here is how it works : waste which is supposed to contain about 50% of 
organics is pushed into a 9m long 1.3 m diam. steel tube along with a variable 
quantity of lime. The mid-section of the tube is heated to bring waste to a 
temperature of about 500 deg C for 20 minutes or more. Time of heating depends 
on heat conductibility of processed waste. The principle : steamcracking of 
organic molecules.

In the thermolysis oven, chlorine combines with hydrogen to form acid which is 
neutralized by the lime added to the waste. Same thing for fluorine. Result : 
no dioxins. What comes out of the oven is a fuel gas and a carbon mass which 
has trapped all heavy metals. The fuel gas having been filtered through about 
3 m thick of activated carbon is clean but contains some condensable. This is 
why it is supposed to be burned, partly to heat the oven.

The black carbon mass - temperature 300 deg C - along with the calcium salts 
drops in water which cools down the carbon while diluting a good part of the 
salts. Heavy metals contained in the carbon mass, if present in objectionnable 
concentration, can be removed by electrolysis. Resulting carbon can be used in 
cement kilns, in blast furnaces or in thermic power generator plants.

A coke can introduced with waste gets out shiny with no trace of paint.

Thermolysis, I found out, is totally unknown in the States. Pilot plants in 
France and Italy work satisfactorily. If you want to know more and can read 
French, just send me $10 in an envelope with - do not forget - your address : 
I'll send a 12 page description with a sketch by airmail.

My address: 	Mr. E.H. de Broux
		rue du Sacre-Coeur 7
		B-5590 LEIGNON, Belgium
		Fax : + 32 83 21 22 13

By the way, thermolysis can rehabilitate existing landfills. I do not know 
about any other process which can without producing carbohalogenated 
substances like dioxins and furans.

I am retired executive and an activist fighting a project of building yet 
another MSW incinerator in Belgium.
Regards from friendly Belgium