TURKEY PROCESSING WASTES TO DIESEL OIL – INVESTIGATING THE ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE OF A HYDROTHERMAL PROCESS FOR TRANSFERRING FOOD INDUSTRY WASTE INTO USEFUL PRODUCTS
Morgan Fröling 1,2 Andrew Peterson2 and Jefferson W Tester 1,2
1 Laboratory for Energy and the Environment, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
2 Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(free)
Large flows of material processed by food industry are not converted into marketable food products. These materials, a biological feedstock recourse, are today, in many cases, considered waste to be land filled or reused in lower grade rendering applications. Even if utilized, processes used are often troubled by odor and there is a market resistance to some of the conversion products caused by risks for spreading of pathogens and contaminants. In Carthage, Missouri, a plant has been built by Changing World Technologies (CWT) to convert the turkey offal waste refuse produced by a large food processing plant into diesel oil, gaseous fuels, low-grade thermal energy and fertilizer products. The CWT hydrothermal process operates as an essentially closed system with minimal emissions avoiding odor problems from handling and gives products free from pathogens. The oil itself is at the same time free from fossil carbon and relatively clean burning in engines. In this study, Life Cycle Assessment has been used to investigate the overall environmental performance of the process. The environmental performance of this route for production of diesel oil is compared to the traditional diesel oil refining process.
KEY WORDS: Food industry, Diesel oil, Hydrothermal processing, Life cycle assessment.
