4 replies to this topic

[Art Montemayor]

Ayush:

The conversion of agricultural waste material (such as corn cobs, rice hulls, oat hulls, and peanut shells) into Furfural and subsequently into Furfuryl Alcohol (FA) is something I did for some years. I managed the design and installation of an FA plant in Belgium that is still in operation.

The process is carried out in two basic steps:

1) Hydrolyze the pentosan content in the waste cellulose material to Furfural;
2) Hydrogenate the Furfural to FA in isothermal, fixed bed reactors.

The various steps are outlined in the literature, but the real secrets are the materials of construction, the catalysts, and other captive, proprietary information. Some general information may be available on the Internet and in the literature. What is it specifically that you want mailed to you? What do you want it for?

Art Montemayor

hi sir art...

i would to consult and ask for a suggestion or idea of utilizing a waste material and processing it to a useful product, just like agricultural waste to FA... im in my final year and im very passionate about utilizing waste materials for my plant design...

i hope you can give me some ideas... thanks so much!

[Art Montemayor]

Graystar:

It's very nice and commendable to contemplate the utilization of agricultural waste products for useful purposes - such as conversion to chemicals, building products, fuels, etc. I was involved in this area when I was an engineer in the Furfural - Furans chemical industry. We used oat hulls, peanut shells, corn cobs, rice hulls, and bagasse as the raw material to produce Furfural.

The ability to economically exploit waste agricultural materials is very difficult and becoming moreso everyday. It takes tremendous amounts of backbreaking manhours to collect this kind of material and then a lot of transportation energy to transport it to a central processing facility in order to achieve an economy of scale. The transport costs are increasing with gasoline and diesel costs. The labor that can make or break such a project is only found in less-developed countries where the man-hour costs are at the lowest level. Additionally, nothing in life is "free" - especially agricultural waste material. The moment you succeed in converting it to something useful, it immediately gains in value. Rarely does the waste processor also own or control the agricultural source of the waste material. Therefore, any labor strike, drought, or crop failure immediately affects the waste materials processor. That's why you don't see many people or investors rushing to build these type of facilities. The risk is high and the return on the investment is inherently very low.

I don't know of any successful ventures recently that I could recommend. The more the world develops, the harder it is to justify low-cost manual labor. It just isn't rational nor logical to have a fully-developed country using its relatively expensive labor costs to gather and transport waste materials in a competive marketplace. It is a paradoxical situation that doesn't seem to have a solution. Even the incinerating of our garbage and waste to produce heat and energy costs more than the end product. I just don't have any ideas or suggestions that I could offer. Maybe others on this Forum can come up with some factual and realistic ideas. Sorry.

hi sir art!

thanks for the wise insight you shared about the utilization of waste materials to a product. im really appreciate the ideas and counsel you've given me. However, I am really deeply passionate about using my plant design in my final year to make an impact for my country. I'm from a 3rd-world country and we have a lot of agricultural wastes. Stubborn as I was, I still pursued on finding ways to utilize this waste.

I've come up with a proposal and again, I need your knowledge and experience. Since agricultural wastes are so abundant in our country, i thought that we could use the cellulose from these wastes and use it as a raw material to produce biodegradable plastics. The usual method i found on the internet was from starch (derived from corn and other crops) to glucose, and then glucose is fermented to lactic acid, and lactic acid undergoes polymerization to produce PLA (polylactic acid) and then to plastic.

could i ask of your expert opinion on the feasibility (technical and economic) of turning abundant agricultural wastes (rice hull, coconut husk, peanut hulls) to bioplastic?

id really appreciate your reply. thanks!