Wastewater Treatment to Produce Oil in 3 Minutes, not 3 Million Years

Are fossil fuels a renewable or nonrenewable resource?

Well, it takes roughly 3 million years for those ‘fossils’ to break down into useable oil, so many would say that for our purposes it’s not.

That may be changing with a new technology called hydrothermal liquefaction, which when used in conjunction with wastewater treatment could extract residual biomaterials from sewage and turn it into petroleum.

Wastewater Treatment May Need a New Name

Before long, we may need to find a new term for “wastewater”. That’s because scientists, professors and wastewater treatment companies across the country continue to find new ways to reuse – not waste – the water and the “waste” that make up wastewater.

In a recent blog, we discussed how a professor at Medger Evers College in New York is working to break “brown grease” made of vegetable oil, animal fats, and other oils from cooking into fuel using a process called Pyrolysis.

Oil in 3 Minutes, Not 3 Million Years

Hydrothermal liquefaction mimics the process by which the Earth creates crude oil, albeit in a much quicker fashion. Basically, it breaks organic material, such as human waste, into simple compounds, pressurizes them to 3,000 pounds per square inch, and heats them to 660 degrees Fahrenheit. What comes out the other end is not waste, human or otherwise, but ‘fossil’ petroleum that can be refined into the diesel and gasoline we know and love.

Hydrothermal Liquefaction: Who Would Benefit?

Who would the technology benefit? While each person could produce enough waste in a year to produce three gallons of their own fossil fuel, few people will be setting up reactors in their garages. The primary benefactors of this technology would be local governments, which spend a significant amount of money processing, transporting and disposing of sewage residuals. Will it work? Only time will tell. The hydrothermal liquefaction technology has been licensed to Genifuel Corporation in Utah, which is working with local authorities in British Columbia, Canada, to build a demonstration plant. Construction is slated to begin in 2018.