THE people of Paraparaumu are involved in a poo pilot.
Wellington-based clean tech company SpectioNZ is developing a leading-edge system, which converts organic waste like sewage into useable products such as electricity.
CEO Mike Henare has been involved in the project for the past 18-months while business partner Murray “the scientist” Friar has been working on it for five years.
“I’m a civil engineer,” says Henare. “I had 10 years working with an oil major, and then 10 years running my own business in Auckland. Murray ran this idea past me, and asked if I’d be interested in getting involved. I was.”
The pair have successfully got the idea out of the lab and into the real world of Paraparaumu, and scientists from Crown researcher the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences have designed the processing chamber.
The trial is on a small scale, but already “there’s some exciting things coming out”.
The SpectioNZ waste conversion system is based on pyrolysis, an age-old idea that works by heating organic matter to a certain temperature with the absence of oxygen.
“With oxygen you get combustion, but without it you get a chemical reaction,” says Henare.
Depending on the heated temperature, the by-product of this reaction could be a chemical such as methane, which you can convert into power.
“Pyrolysis has been around for years, but what is new is we’re using microwave technology to make the heat. It allows us to be more accurate with temperature control, and our design takes that to the next level,” laughs Henare. With patents pending, he’s tight-lipped about what the next level is, however.
SpectioNZ design could be important for a country like New Zealand, because it takes a waste product that usually ends up in landfills, gets rid of it, and turns it into something useable in a sustainable cycle.
“In 2006 New Zealanders sent about three million tonnes of waste went to landfill, and out of that, 60% could be considered to be organic and be potentially used with this system,” says Henare.
While pyrolysis is rarely used on a large scale because of the huge cost associated with it, SpectioNZ’s system is much cheaper.
Henare says even better, it has the ability to be containerised, and therefore be delivered worldwide.
“Once you have something that’s containerised and creates enough energy to drive itself, you could drop it anywhere in the world – say, a remote island that has problems with waste. You could potentially provide power for remote villages.
It’s still early days for SpectioNZ however, and Henare says they’re in the process of testing the by-products of the system, which as well as power, can also form things such as soil conditioner and a barrier around streams to protect them against farm run-off.
“But even as a waste processor it’s economic. It’s getting rid of waste and converting it into something of value to the community it comes from.”