After 3 months (sending 1st of 30 emails to alphakat)of no response from alphakat i phoned (14/2/2006)them and spoke to Sussanne von Siegfried. Well it seems that this magic machine is still just a pie in the sky which had limited successes with the cats, rubber, plastics etc. and at proto level only. The other machines in italy and mexico and i believe in Australia all run on waste oil, crude oil and similar products which is easy cause there are some other techniques like pyrolysis etc which are doing the same job. This special machine that create biofuel from anything will only be ready for mass production in june 2006. and I hope by then that they have also upgraded there communication skills in replying and not just reading there emails.[V][:(!]. Here are the questions of concern that have not been answered: If you have a minute to spare I would like to ask more questions about this bio diesel manufacturing plants/technology. Since I’ve tried to communicate with you on your web site I have not yet had any reply from you or your office, therefore the follow up on the previous email. I visited your web site and could not find any reference detail about the process / method used for using biomass to make bio diesel nor any references of people or places where these plants are up and running. I spent a lot of time in reading up on bio diesel and the first I came across was the KDV 500 system (Catalytic Depolimerisation) of Dr Koch from Alpha Kat (Zukunfts Energie). You claim to use temperatures less than 380 degrees Celsius. Despite the critics that believe in other methods and say that its not going to work and "that your method still need to be tested thoroughly" and proofed before it’s implemented. Can you furnish me with test results and references of people that have these plants installed and are up and running http://www.globalfinest.com (under tech) also refers to this low temp process. And states that “…the Ozmotech pyrolisis concept has been outdated by this one.”, “….this low temperature process avoids all the drawbacks of Pyrolisis.” http://www.transgasindustry.ru/ also refers to the same process. My reason for l looking at a low temperature system is to avoid the formation of dioxins and furan gasses which is not desirable if one want to get rid of some waste material but on the other end creating the more in the same process. I contacted some one from Clyvia- tec in Germany(http://www.clyviatec.de) , a Dr Manfred Sappok, who replied “sorry, but biomass cannot be transferred to Diesel by the Depolimerisation process at 400 °C. This can only be done by Pyrolysis, this process works at 700°C. Sorry about that.” Sound to me he is very uninformed about the latest technology or deny the authenticity of your study. I have made contact with Harro van Blottnitz (hvb@chemeng.uct.ac.za) of the UCT South Africa who helped to write a article about your plant and technology in the "Chemical Technology, December 2005." to ask for any comments. Needless to say he sounded very excited and positive about it, but also with no technical detail. I would appreciate if you can help me, because i am trying to get a project up and running and without your help and information it will not be a success.

Well I had a similar non-response contacting Changing World Technologies. But I DID get a much better and inspiring response from talking to HCECO. Now this technology is based on proven steps, and works through the ultimate in 'depolymerisation' - the breaking of materials into their elements, Carbon, Hydrogen, CO and other wastes are removed. The Carbon, Hydrogen and CO can all be made use of. It should be possible to depolymerise plastics and other wastes, I imagine. The process of plasma cracking cellulose consumes only about 15% of the feedstock energy. Also, waste heat can be used in later steps (such as FTP to make liquid fuel) and in hot areas, the plasma cracker can be powered partly from solar energy via concentrators, indeed most of the power could be derived from solar. The best part is that the carbon produced by this is a brilliant fuel - it can be oxidised in a Direct Carbon Fuel Cell with about 90% or more of the energy potentially turned into electricity. http://www.hceco.com/ Warning, the web site doesn't look the greatest around! But all these statistics appear to be fully verified in proven technology or demonstrator prototypes, and is supported by Lawrence Livermore work (Dr Cooper). Bad signature alert!

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...Also, waste heat can be used in later steps (such as FTP to make liquid fuel)...

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NOTE: FT process is exothermic.

The website indicates use of a catalyst, which would presumably mean lower-temp operations would be OK. Am I reading this wrong?

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Originally posted by crinoidgirl
The website indicates use of a catalyst, which would presumably mean lower-temp operations would be OK. Am I reading this wrong?

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Both lower temperature and lower pressure. I suppose it would be easier to keep odors under control if you didn't have stuff running around under high pressure. I have been curious as to why we haven't heard more about this company - in theory they are in the same market as CWT, but secrecy is one other thing that CWT and Nanokat have in common. :wq

I'm also curious about that. I'm currently searching for plastics-to-oil companies for the research firm that I work for. Globalfinest just revised their website slightly, so I assume they're still trying to sell the system. Are there ANY working KDV systems out there?

Maybe this is why KDV has stalled... they are mixing with convicted criminals Read the article carefully Trash-to-diesel technology raises eyebrows By Drew DeSilver Seattle Times business reporter Green Power's Dr. Christian Koch explains the process as lead technician Olaf Heimbuerge pours a mixture of used oil and landfill waste. Olaf Heimbuerge monitors the first stage in a demonstration of the process his company says converts landfill waste into diesel fuel. The company plans to open its first plant in Fife next year and eventually nationally. Green Power CEO Michael Spitzauer helps Heimbuerge pour fuel made by the company into a jug. Green Power CEO Michael Spitzauer puts the fuel into his car before taking it for a demonstration spin. FIFE — As the machinery mounted on a flatbed truck chugged and rumbled — purportedly converting landfill trash into diesel fuel — Issaquah entrepreneur Michael Spitzauer spoke confidently about how he and his company, Green Power, were out to reshape the world. The first plant, Spitzauer says, is to open next year on tribal land in this Tacoma suburb; a second, in Montana, soon after. Within a decade, 1,500 plants are to open across the country, all simultaneously solving the solid-waste and imported-oil problems. "The big oil companies in Europe and this country have made threats to us, but even if they would do something to our lives, this company will go on," Spitzauer said. "Our plant works, and we will make diesel for the people." But doubts have been raised about the claims made for Green Power's technology and about Spitzauer's personal history — a history that includes a fraud conviction in his native Austria, a lengthy extradition battle in a separate case, and the bankruptcy of his previous business venture. In an interview, Spitzauer, 38, said none of that was relevant to Green Power and its prospects. "What easier way is there to discredit somebody than to look at something in their past?" he said. "We are here for the future." But David Mahmood, chairman of Allegiance Capital, a Dallas investment bank that had agreed to raise capital for Green Power earlier this year but pulled out in May, said Spitzauer was a good salesman but not someone he was interested in doing business with. "We have found Mr. Spitzauer's statements to be somewhat over the top," Mahmood said. "He overpromises and underdelivers." As for the waste-to-diesel technology, he said, "I didn't think it was viable and/or financeable." Spitzauer said the first plant would cost $82 million to build. Green Power has arranged financing from unspecified private investors, he said, and has no plans to seek additional investors. Fife demonstration Spitzauer and his associates were in Fife to demonstrate their trash-to-diesel technology to about 100 onlookers, whose reactions ranged from intrigued to enthusiastic. "I went in skeptical and came out optimistic that they have something viable," said Peter Moulton, who manages the Harvesting Clean Energy program for Climate Solutions, an Olympia-based nonprofit group. Ralph Hale, a member of the family that is negotiating to lease about 20 acres to Green Power, summed up the venture's appeal: "Put garbage in one end and get diesel out the other end — it'll change the world if it works." The process, as explained by Spitzauer and inventor Christian Koch of Germany, starts with organic waste — such as paper, plastic and textiles, but not glass or metal. The waste was dried, ground up and mixed with waste oil, lime and what Koch described as aluminum silicate, the catalyst at the heart of this process. The mixture was then poured into a hopper, with what they say is diesel fuel coming out of a spigot. (Although the small demonstration unit required waste oil as part of the feedstock, Spitzauer and Koch said, the production unit would be much larger and would generate its own oil.) Saying his process mimicked the natural transformation of decomposed organic matter into hydrocarbon fuels, Koch told the crowd: "We have shortened the time from 300 million years to three minutes." After the demonstration, Moulton said there are still unanswered questions about the process — from whether it will work at an industrial scale to whether significantly more energy goes into producing the diesel than the fuel contains. But, he said, "I didn't sense anything from them in the way of hiding any technology." But Eric Stuve, head of the chemical-engineering department at the University of Washington, said it was unclear just how Koch's process worked or how different it is from existing technologies that can convert organic matter to fuel or oil. Contradictory info Stuve, who was not at Wednesday's demonstration but reviewed a 16-page technical brochure about the process, said the description lacked sufficient detail to definitively evaluate the technology and contained several scientific errors and contradictory statements. "Whether this thing can function as promised remains to be seen," Stuve said. "I can't say that it's impossible, but my guess is that it may be technologically feasible but economically infeasible at this time." Philipp Schmidt-Pathmann, president of Waste Recovery Seattle International, a company that licenses German waste-incineration technology, said of Green Power's process: "The bottom line is, not much is known about it." Green Power made an appearance on German TV about six months ago, he said, but "nobody has heard anything about them ever since." "They made a lot of claims, but there's no proof that I have seen," Schmidt-Pathmann said. In June, Green Power demonstrated its technology to city leaders in Cheyenne, Wyo., who were looking for alternatives to building a new landfill. The city came close to signing a contract with Green Power but backed off after the local newspaper reported details of Spitzauer's past. He was convicted of fraud in Austria in 1992, serving three years of a six-year sentence. In 1997, after Spitzauer married a U.S. woman and became a permanent U.S. resident, Austria sought his extradition on different fraud charges. Spitzauer fought extradition for close to four years; in October 2001, the provincial court of Salzburg dropped the request. In the meantime, however, a U.S. jury convicted Spitzauer of lying on his permanent-residency application by saying he had never been convicted of a crime. He was sentenced to six months in federal custody, court records show. In May 2002, Spitzauer started Talidesigns Group, a company that sold jewelry and women's clothing online and through "road shows" at Costco stores. In January 2005, however, U.S. Bank sued Talidesigns, claiming the company kited checks, resulting in nearly $444,000 in overdrafts. The company filed for bankruptcy protection five days later and is being liquidated. Seattle Times business reporter Kristi Heim contributed to this story. As For http://www.globalfinest.com/tech it is up and running and its input materials are Used Motor Oils, Transformer Oil, Crude Oil, Flushing Oil, Oil sludges, Bilge Oil, Plastics, Polyethylene, Polypropylene, PVC and Polystyrene Must be a lot of that on the Islands??

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Originally posted by crinoidgirl
I'm also curious about that. I'm currently searching for plastics-to-oil companies for the research firm that I work for.

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I believe taht this Australian company supplies Plastics to Diesel plants. [url]http://www.ozmotech.com.au/[/url] and as far as I know have them up and running.

hai, i from malaysian n i try KDV process to convereted the biomass to biofuel (diesel) but i cant sucess. can u give me opinion what the best catalyst we need to convert this biomass?

What is the equipment you are using? What is the feedstock? What catalyst are you using?

keiichi:

hai, i from malaysian n i try KDV process to convereted the biomass to biofuel (diesel) but i cant sucess. can u give me opinion what the best catalyst we need to convert this biomass?

It sounds to me that your are trying to reproduce the  KDV process on  your kitchen table? What kind of feedstock are you using? Preparation? Machinery? As far as I know, there is no KDV unit yet in either Malaysia or Indonesia.

Alphakat Engineering is producing KDV plants at a rate of 2 units per month now, with plants already built in Mexico, Canada and Spain, Bulgaria, Italy and else going up at this very moment - so I cannot see that it does not work.

Also we have seen diagrams of the results from various feedstock like slaughterhouse waste, straw, canola and others. The produced light oil is very close to diesel, can be easily brought up to EU specs and has been tested and confirmed by independent laboratories

In short - The process works. I am living in Asia, so we should probably get in contact for exchange of information. green_driver@excite.com

Thanks 4 ur respon. actually i using the pyrolysis process to converted biomass to biodiesel. i use empty fruit bunch (EFB) and thermal oil as the heating medium as same in KDV process but now i dont know the catalyst the aphakat was use. i try using zeolite catalyst but stil didnot get biodisel. can somebody any idea or comment please mail me zamani_chem@yahoo.com

thank you 

green_driver:

Alphakat Engineering is producing KDV plants at a rate of 2 units per month now, with plants already built in Mexico, Canada and Spain, Bulgaria, Italy and else going up at this very moment - so I cannot see that it does not work.

What is the source of your information and what kind of KDV (200, 500, 2000....) units are we talking about here? To my knowledge you got a bit ahead of the real schedule here.

Have you seen the units in Canada, Spain etc. with your own eyes? Or any other independent proof?

Sorry for this kind of asking, there just have been too many lies around Alphakat and it's KDV technology over the last few years. 

keiichi:

Thanks 4 ur respon. actually i using the pyrolysis process to converted biomass to biodiesel.

Pyrolysis on biomass generally yields bio-oil (a very viscous, low-grade oil), not biodiesel.

how to converted biomass to biodisesel?

keiichi:

how to converted biomass to biodisesel?

Unfortunately in your case, i.e. using empty fruit bunch as feedstock, not at all.

Biodiesel is a some what sloppy term for methyl ester, which needs oil (palm oil for example) as a raw material which has to go through a process called transesterification. I strongly suggest, you do some more studying before you go on with your experiments, as you are bound for total frustration.

EFB contains mainly cellulosic substances that can be processed in principle with depolymerization techniques, be it thermal (TDP), catalytic (CDP) or thermocatalytic (KDV being one example). Another approach would be gasification and a consecutive FT synthesis. All of these processes are way to complex to be successfully handled in a backyard. Probably you don't even have the right catalyst. There are at least several hundred different zeolites on the market today.

We will probably do some tests with EFB in our own thermocatalytic reactor in the near future for a customer in South East Asia. I do expect good results. 

thank ulev. i know palm oil to biodiesel is common process but know new chellenge is to converted biomass (byproduct or waste) to biodisel.gasification is good process to converted biomass to biodisel but this process need second step and need more money to operate this process.Are you involved in biodiesel?

 

keiichi:

thank ulev. i know palm oil to biodiesel is common process but know new chellenge is to converted biomass (byproduct or waste) to biodisel.gasification is good process to converted biomass to biodisel but this process need second step and need more money to operate this process.Are you involved in biodiesel?

 

I tried to explain that the depolymerization process you are talking about does not produce biodiesel but a light synthetic oil that is very similar to diesel or heating oil from crude. I am involved in what you are trying to do.

I’ve been visiting one of the famous Alphakat KDV systems. The one I visited was being mounted in a small warehouse in the central Madrid, Spain. It was supposed to be an exhibition system. The machine was incredible simple: two electrical engines moving two turbines that were feeding a cauldron surmounted by a distillation column. The prices that were given to me for the KDV 500 were everything from 1.8 million to 3.75 million Euros (depending with whom I was speaking with). I didn’t see the machine working and had no possibilities to have a “catalytic diesel” sample tested. If the machine could fulfil the claims, it would be something genial, almost a miracle. However, things seemed too good to be true, so I decided to do some research. And the results were astonishing. First of all, I couldn’t find a single university, or credible independent organization, that would back Alphakat’s claims. Secondly, I found a paper from an Australian University where a quite similar process is described, just without the need to use a catalyst. However, the Australian researchers concluded that the end product was a very complex oil not suitable for engine fuel. And finally, if the system was that good, how could it be that the large oil and car companies, that are pouring hundreds of millions in the Diesel from Biomass research, did not evidence any interest for the ultra bargain price Alphakat system?

In Alphakat’s standard contract its given no guarantees (I mean bank guarantees) that the system will work properly. Because Alphakat is a one-man band company, that is not what I understand as reassuring. Moreover, first you pay and than you get the goods. I sent them a proposal suggesting having the German export authorities to guarantee for the system and the claims. After that I suggested the possibility of involving the German authorities as warrantors, Alphakat’s owner suddenly completely lost the interest in the business. The reason I was given was that “he had no time to fill the papers”.

If Alphakat’s system works as claimed, than it is a fantastic machine. It would represent a revolution. However, I would ask them to back their claims through a bank-guarantee or a formal guarantee from the German authorities

Jumper, sorry, but it looks like you haven't done enough research on catalytic depolymerization yet. I have to admit though it is not an easy task.

First, there is academic background. Prof. Willner from the Hamburg University (a former buddy of Dr. Koch) is working on the subject. His work is funded by Volkswagen. The process itself was invented in the 80ties by Prof. Bayer at the University at Tuebingen, Germany and there is Prof. Stadlbauer, Giessen, Germany, also doing a lot of work on the subject. Just to name a few. There is more academic involvment in Asia.

I can also assure you, that there is a lot of interest from the oil industry. I know, because I have a few meetings coming up in the near future myself.

Second, Alphakat with their KDV system is not the only one implementing catalytic depolymerization, they just make the most noise about it, mostly without delivering what they promise. You can find more information about it on this thread: http://www.biodieselnow.com/forums/thread/36038.aspx .

Third, why do you believe, there should be German Government guarantees readily available for a depolymerisation plant? That's news to me.

And last, if you only rely on Alphakat information only you will never find out what it is all about. Dr. Koch suffers from a certain kind of paranoia, that everybody and his uncle want to steal from him. Therefore he doesn't even want to explain the basics. Catalytic depolymerization is not a newly invented process. One can start reading Prof. Bayer's patent from the 80ties, and even he wasn't the first one who discovered the principles. However, with todays zeolites there are much better catalysts available to get it done. And with oil prices above 50 $ per barrel the process becomes economically feasible.

Once you get the big picture, you also realize, that the remaining challenge is primarily an engineering task. Its all about getting a working plant going, and not the underlying chemical and physical theories.

And finally, I think you should understand, that if you want to benefit from a newly implemented technology as an early adopter, you also have to live with some technical challenges and a somewhat higher risk. If that is not for you, you better put your money into more established areas. A call for the German Government to back up that risk is not appropriate in my opinion. Unless you want to invest in Germany of course. On the other hand I do of course understand, that you are not willing to sign Alphakats contract. I wouldn't do that either.

If you are still interested in cataytic depolymerization you can drop me a message.