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New technologies can ensure economic and energy self-sustainability. How it works in practice, shows the research project of the slow non-oxidative thermal decomposition (PTR) of the Hedviga Group company located in Frýdek-Místek.

Hedviga Group made a great impression at the International Specialized EXPO Exhibition in Kazakhstan Astana last year, further on this year, the company introduced itself for the first time at the IFAT Munich Trade Fair.
There, besides the PTR technology, teh company introduced a comprehensive solution Enerkal for the utilization of sewage sludge. "These are years of hard work during which we have been looking for and actually still are a meaningful and functional solution to waste and energy self-sustainability technologies", says research and development director Monika Pullman(ová).

Where do you get your ideas from?

We have our own Research Center for Thermal Processes and Power Units. In addition to the production of PTR equipment, intensive development and research are being conducted simultaneously. New challenges are still emerging and in the forthcoming projects we are dealing with, for example, a multi-stage fuel desulphurisation system, sorbent production and the like. PTR technology has a wide range of input raw materials, starting with waste and biomass ending, which gives us a huge advantage. Therefore we are always particular about getting acquainted with the input raw materials as well as the scope of the given project, and not until then we propose solutions individually tailored for the client.

What is PTR technology different from?

We offer a mobile and complex unit that can develop together with the client´s development, in the processing capacities, the type of input raw material, the legislative constraints and last but not least in the focus of the project. This is the way how we deal with the utilization of sewage sludge as a raw material for farmers in the Enerkal project. Besides the sewage sludges, which, unlike other solutions, do not have to be dried beforehand, a very interesting input material is an expensively recycled plastic.
Nowadays, cities are full of yellow containers though, but the customers of the "dirty plastic" that remains after the separation of PET bottles are too few, so these plastics end up again in a landfill or incinerator.

What is waiting for you after the Munich event?

After we have returned from IFAT we are overwhelmed with questions from wastewater treatment operators and operators of sorting lines. We had a booth in B6 pavilion in the middle of companies offering crushers and separators of plastics and other materials. Among all of them our PTR technology sticked out, which just from plastics for instance, produces electricity and fuel.

For whom is PTR designed for?

We are addressed by small and large companies engaged in waste, farmers, WWTP operators, but also more and more by representatives of municipalities. For farmers, the PTR unit creates reserves of energy and the carbonaceous material produced can be applied back to the soil as a fertilizer. We offer municipalities a Smart PTR solution where people sort waste, know what happens further to the sorted waste and that it makes sense. Inhabitants of such municipalities can benefit, for example from cheaper charges for waste and energy costs that the municipality will save. This is our goal: to create for example urban electric mobility by our smart PTR solution of raw materials on the territory of the village, by the lighting system, further by city sports centers, schools and possibly by backup energy sources.

Let's get all wheels mooving!

PTR is an innovative technology solution which transforms a complex organic substance into a simpler substance by controlled thermal transformation. It transforms waste into fuel, then it rotates an engine in a cogeneration unit by which it produces electricity and heat. "The research and development of the PTR technology has been developing since 2010, actually since the initial idea of ​​producing a self-sustainable, semi-mobile equipment that produces liquid and solid fuels from tires. This will ensure both the energy self-sustainability of the equipment by using liquid fuel to produce electricity as well as a positive economic balance when selling solid carbonaceous fuel with coke properties", says Hedviga Group technical and production director Petr Cuber. By the first idea and vision during the next seven years of research and development of the PTR technology, by innovations of individual technological units and the independent development of bifuelcogeneration, while testing more than 150 different inputs, it came full circle. The uniqueness of its technical solution has Hedviga stated itself to acquire patents and utility models.