What is it?

          The concept of pyrolysis process is not considered new, the development of pyrolysis began since 1970 and this technology is growing maturely from time to time. Hydrocarbon (such as natural gas and diesel) and charcoal were once the cheapest material for power generation, however, the unstable fuel prices and recent global economic trends encouraged the development of alternative biofuel from organic materials (Palma et al., 2011). Biofuel, developed from plant materials and other organic materials, possess great potential in global market value and is currently being widely researched by private industry, universities and government agencies around the world.

          Supermarkets have to throw away a lot of raw food materials such as meats, vegetables and fruits everyday if these food is considered not fresh and nobody is willing to buy it. All of the food materials is also known as organic materials, instead of throwing it, we can use those food materials for pyrolysis process to convert them into more useful materials. Pyrolysis is a form of treatment that decompose organic materials, such as biomass, by heating the materials in high temperature environment in the absence of oxygen. Since there is no oxygen present during pyrolysis process, the chemical compounds involve do not combust but are decompose into combustible gases and liquid. The liquid product is called bio-oil while the remaining solid of the process is called bio-char. The proportion of the products produced depends on several factors including the composition of the feedstock as well as the process parameters (ARS, 2010). There are two types of pyrolysis process, which is fast pyrolysis and slow pyrolysis. Fast pyrolysis produces more bio-oil than bio-char while in slow pyrolysis, the major product will be the bio-char and the minor product is the bio-oil. Besides that, during the process, practically it is impossible to create an oxygen-free atmosphere, this is because there is still oxidation occurs inside the organic materials, hence we can fully convert of the materials in to bio-oil or bio char. The unconverted remaining after the process need to be retransfer into the pyrolysis chamber again for second conversion.

Why do we choose this technology? Why not others?

          Nowadays, companies around the world are actively practicing green technology in order to reduce carbon footprint and avoid wastage of materials. Back to our case study, although there is many other easier ways to dispose the expired item, such as incineration or landfilling, we would like to use pyrolysis process as the main method to dispose them.

          The main reason is because the disposed item mostly consist of organic materials, for example: fruits, vegetables and meats. All of these items can be used as the raw materials for pyrolysis process. By using this method, rather than other disposing methods we mentioned just now, pyrolysis process can avoid wastage of materials since all of the products produced is useful to us in many ways.

          In the other hand, the products of pyrolysis process benefits us in many ways. Bio-oil can be upgraded to either a special engine fuel or through gasification processes to a syngas and then bio-diesel. Bio-oil is particularly attractive for co-firing because it can be more readily handled, burned than solid fuel and is cheaper to transport and store (Salman Zafar, 2015).  In addition, bio-oil is also a vital source for a wide range of organic compounds and specialty chemicals. The bio-char after the process also can be used as fertilizer in agriculture as soil amender because it has high absorbability to preventing water, chemicals, and nutrients from losing as well as preventing water contamination and soil erosion (Salman Zafar, 2015). Moreover, the syngas produced during power can be reuse as heating fuel to generate the pyrolysis process.

Overall, pyrolysis process possess better environmental performance and higher efficiency than other technologies we have. All of the products is fully use and not much pollution is produced during the process, this conform to the objectives of green technologies.