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Targeted Microwave Solutions going for gold with its revolutionary technology to dry the black stuff
In this job you learn all manner of weird and wonderful things, including the difference between so called low-rank and high-rank coal. You didn’t know there was a caste system for coal, did you?
Well, more precisely it is a method of classification. High rank coal, such as anthracite, is hard and burns at high temperatures – making it a valuable source of industrial power.
The downside is that it typically has a high sulphur content (source of pollution during combustion) and is expensive to mine (located deep underground).
Low rank coal, the likes of lignite, doesn’t burn nearly as well as, or as hot as, the higher quality stuff because it can be over 60% water.
But, remove that moisture and in many cases, you have a lower sulphur, substantially cheaper, alternative to high rank coal.
To date, attempts to de-water low-rank coals using traditional, fossil-fuel combustion drying methods (rotary kiln, fluid bed dryer or flash kiln) have had several setbacks: they emit pollutants, and require costly “pre-processing” steps such as pulverizing the coal and creating vacuum environments to prevent the coal from combusting during drying.
What Targeted Microwave Solutions (CVE:TMS) has come up with is a green, cheaper, and safer alternative to these traditional drying methods.
The clue is in the name in that it uses precision microwave technology to extract both the surface and inherent water.
Its WAVEdri microwave reactors ensure uniform drying of the low-rank coal without subjecting the coal to the dangerously high temperatures associated with traditional thermal drying.
In fact, the environmental authorities in Virginia, site of the TMS demonstration plant, have signed it off as clean emission, which as we will see later, is important.
The fact the coal is dried from the inside out means it doesn’t have to be crushed up to be dried as it does now using conventional drying technology. Neither, then, does it have to be reconstituted as briquettes, removing another layer of cost.
It should be pointed out WAVEdri can be used to remove unwanted water from biomass and clay and not just coal. “It is a revolutionary technology but not rocket science,” said chief executive officer, Dr James Young. The technology is heavily patented in large part due to US$14mln of investment over the last two years.
To illustrate the wide range of applications for the company’s Gen 3.0 technology, Young mentioned that one of the main material segments TMS is focused on is drying the high-value industrial clays that Nestle-Purina uses to make cat litter in King William, Virginia.
The US$5mln TMS drying facility was built in just five months and can operate at throughputs of 25 tonnes per hour. A four-stack TMS unit will have the capacity to reach 100 tonnes per hour, or 1mln per year, which is seen as optimal.
A rotary kiln, one of the most popular means of industrial drying, can cost US$25-$30mln to construct. It might extract 1lb of water per kilowatt hour of energy used, while the microwave system removes an impressive 4lbs. As it is a clean emission technology, there is no environmental levy to pay or any cap on production, which only serves to burnish the economics of the WAVEdri.
And there is the wider environmental opportunity with 40% of all industrial emissions emanating from industrial drying activities globally. “Adopted and properly championed this should become the preferred clean tech solution for industrial drying globally” said TMS boss Young.
The commercialization phase is now well underway with potential customers in the US, Europe and China being wooed.
The company expects to build two to three low-cost microwave plants per year in the coal, clay and biomass sector over the next three to four years and will fund the first from a planned US$5mln fundraiser.
Initially it will charge customers a tolling fee for processing material. Longer-term it expects to receive a profit share or royalty.
“By funding it ourselves we negate the adoption risk; it allows customers to see us up and running before they reimburse us,” said CEO Young.
Logically the exit would be a sale of the technology lock, stock and barrel to one of the large engineering companies that has the financial heft to deploy WAVEdri to its global potential. “Yes, I’m sure it would appeal to a GE, Siemens, Bechtel or Fluor; they will see the scalability of this,” said Young. “But we really aren’t looking that far ahead yet.”
Story by ProactiveInvestors
Source: http://www.proactiveinvestors.com/companies/news/175237/targeted-microwave-solutions-going-for-gold-with-its-revolutionary-technology-to-dry-the-black-stuff-175237.html
