Destructive Distillation - Paper Mill Sludge Management Alternative, 1993 Recycling Symposium Proceedings

William A. Fio Rito

A two-year test and evaluation program (1982-1984) was carried out at Marcal Paper Mills, Elmwood Park, New Jersey to evaluate the commercial viability of Destructive Distillation as a resource recovery process for solid waste. The program was funded in part by the Office of Energy Related Inventions (OERI), U.S. Department of Energy.

The results indicate the process is environmentally friendly and has the ability to provide substantial energy savings utilizing organic solid waste as its sole source of fuel.

The technology is able to fractionate the biomass content of municipal and industrial wastewater sludge to a combustible gas and inert char in an environmentally safe manner.

Full scale operation of the process has been carried out on sewage and deinked paper mill sludge at installations in California and New Jersey. This paper presents destructive distillation as an alternative to incineration and landfill of paper mill wastewater sludge.