Combustion and carbonisation exhaust utilisation in electric discharge and its relation to prebiotic chemistry

Abstract The municipal waste carbonisation inside a high temperature combustion chamber using direct heating by exhaust gas flow in an oxygen free atmosphere is an interesting alternative in the waste management scenario. The process has a lot of similarities with biomass pyrolysis. During carbonisation inside an oven at lower temperatures (∼350 °C) the main process is cracking, producing liquid hydrocarbons as levoglucosane and similar tar compounds, then at higher temperatures (∼650 °C) hydrogen is formed, while at very high temperatures (∼950 °C) carbon char/active carbon is formed instead of ash. The heat from the process can be recuperated. The method for flue gas cleaning with possible application to combustion and carbonisation process uses non-thermal plasma based pilot system for 50–250 m 3 /h of gas flow. The applied method very efficiently cleaned the exhaust gas from a variety of non-wanted compounds, utilising whole combustion exhaust. CO 2 removal efficiency was as high as 40–99%. The process is connected with nitrogen fixation, removal of NO x , VOC, PAH, SH and SO x , PCDD, PCDF and other is done with high efficiency and without wastewater production. The final solid amino acids condensation product (proteinoid) made in electric discharge seems to be convenient as a nitrogen containing fertiliser.