Ag Waste Solutions (AWS) – Thermal Processing

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Ag Waste Solutions (AWS) – Thermal Processing

Working to Sustain Global Farming

About the Company:

AWS partners with farmers to create new profit centers from their manure and other ag resources. AWS has created a “Circle of Energy” shared ownership and profit sharing business model to tailor solutions for converting ag resources into the most profitable and sustainable benefits for the partnership. AWS system components are skid mounted, portable and scalable, thereby reducing costs and enabling local use of carbon negative and clean water co-products to help farmers meet and exceed the most stringent air, water and soil regulatory requirements in the world.

About the Solution:

The AWS technology system consists of the following technologies:

  • coarse solids screening and large fiber recovery
  • advanced suspended/fine solids recovery (decanter centrifuge)
  • membrane filtration and water treatment
  • pre-drying
  • pyrolysis gasification for bio-syngas production and nutrient recovery (biochar + ash)
  • ammonium sulfate and elemental sulfur recovery
  • steam methane reforming
  • Fischer-Tropsch (FT) synthesis
  • distillation
  • energy recovery for parasitic power needs
  • turbine generator for electricity needs.

Ag Waste Solutions (AWS) 4607 Lakeview Canyon Rd, Suite 185 Westlake Village, CA USA 805-551-0116 Visit Company Website

Solution Type

  • Gasification

Vendor

  • Project Developer

Product

  • Concentrated Nutrients
  • Energy
  • Other

Problem

  • GHG
  • Odor
  • Pathogens
  • Phosphorous
  • Storage

To view additional information about this vendor, click below.

Solution Strengths, Weaknesses and Critical Indicators

Gasification:

  • Produces a soil amendment in the form of biochar
  • Biochar does not yet have an established, stable commercial market
  • There is significant variation in energy use and recovery depending on feedstock
  • There is significant variation of operational intensity by site and by technology, many technologies require pairing with other technologies to offer a comprehensive manure management solution
  • There is significant variation of cost depending on site and by technology
  • Proven technology for phosphorous recovery, storage reduction, GHG reduction, odor control and pathogen reduction
  • This technology loses nitrogen to the atmosphere

Newtrient Comments/Opinions:

Thermal process technologies:

  • Produce a soil amendment in the form of biochar, ash and other products
  • These products have not yet established a stable commercial market
  • Include pyrolysis, torrefaction, gasification and hydrothermal carbonization
  • There is significant variation in energy use and recovery depending on feedstock
  • There is significant variation of operational intensity by site and by technology
  • There is significant variation of cost by site and by technology
  AWS has built a very impressive proof of concept plant at the Scott Brothers Dairy Farm in the San Jacinto Valley of Southern California. They plan on adding another gasifier and increasing the capacity of the syngas cleaning and liquid fuel production equipment so that they can process all the manure from the dairy and some from surrounding dairies.   AWS has also worked on a business plan that envisions a large scale “hub and spoke” concept that processes the manure from surrounding dairies. It is envisioned to have a profit-sharing model with AWS and participating dairies. This technology shows great potential but is not yet proven at commercial scale. The economic viability will be primarily determined by the price the plant can receive for high volume production of biochar. There is significant interest in the use of biochar to improve soil quality as well as other uses.   Newtrient is not aware of demand for large volumes of biochar at a price point that would be needed to make the business model work. AWS has not been evaluated using Newtrient's 9-point scoring process because this technology is not yet commercially available.

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