There is increasing demand to make electricity from engines running on renewable fuels, including biomass-to-energy from municipal solid waste. Currently, many landfill facilities are being shut down due to impending government regulation that limits NOx emissions.
Meeting these regulations usually requires very expensive after-treatment which makes the electricity produced uneconomical. In response, TIAX has developed Hydrogen Assisted Lean Operation (BioHALO) which leverages commercial technologies and does not require expensive after-treatment clean-up (e.g., siloxanes removal and selective catalytic reduction catalysts).
Figure 1: TIAX BioHALO system schematic
TIAX BioHALO uses an upstream reformer which generates hydrogen-rich syngas. This syngas is added to the burning of landfill gas at an operating point which drastically reduces NOx emissions.
TIAX demonstrated a 75kW gas-fired engine cogeneration at its test facility in Cambridge, Massachusetts. TIAX also plans to demonstrate a mid-size (250 kW) BioHALO system.
TIAX BioHALO costs about 10-20% more than a conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) generator, but after the capital investment, it produces "free" electricity and NOx credits.