Heating and electricity production via domestic-scale pyrolysis of wastes to drive micro-gas turbines

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"The unique Home Energy Recovery Unit (HERU, www.myheru.com) was delivered and commissioned at our university in June 2021. The HERU allows households and businesses to recover energy from their own wastes by pyrolysing these resources into combustible gases that can be burned in hot water boilers, saving money and saving the environment. Meanwhile, micro-gas turbine technology is well suited to burning gas of variable provenance and offers the opportunity to upgrade some of the recovered energy to more valuable electricity, making these two technologies well matched for synergistic benefits.The PhD project will encompass three main areas:1. Pyrolysis of feedstocks and analysis of pyrolysis products.Pyrolysis gases will be generated from a range of representative feedstocks including typical domestic food wastes (bread, fruit and vegetable wastes), typical packaging associated with these foods, and typical university wastes from catering and laboratories, including coffee cups and PPE.The constituent makeup of the pyrolysis gas will be modelled empirically in relation to feedstocks and production of hydrocarbons, CO, CO2 and H2. The deliverables from this task will be data on gas production and combustion from a range of feedstocks, presented in a scientific paper that also places the HERU innovation in the wider energy context, and contributing new knowledge about low temperature pyrolysis from these feedstocks and this context.2. Gas composition envelope for MGT combustionIn this task the sensitivity of the syngas content to feedstock variation will be evaluated, to understand the operating envelope of the turbine. If the variability of the gas components is within a narrow band, this will allow design and use of a tightly optimised combustion system; if not, a system tolerant to a wider range of constituents will be required. The deliverable from this task will be an MGT design suitable for combusting HERU gases, presented in a scientific paper that also describes the integrated system.3. LCA and techno-economic analyses within the university contextThis task will integrate the above tasks to maintain a coherence and integrity to the overall project and to ensure its implementation is informed by a clear understanding of the interactions and synergies between the components. The deliverables from this task will be a report to the university recommending whether and how to integrate larger-scale units into the university's energy systems in ways that also support teaching and research, and a scientific paper detailing the assessments."