BTL to ORD: Municipal Waste to Syngas

The total annual municipal solid waste (MSW) generation in the US has increased to 268 million tons per year since 1980, this is a 70% increase. The EPA states the generation rate of MSW was 2.68 pounds per person in 1960 and in 2018 it increased to 4.9 pounds per person. This significant growth of MSW is a problem because most of this waste is going straight into landfill. The purpose of this project is to create a plant in the O’Hare Airport area that converts 500,000 tons of MSW into 428,500 tons of syngas per year, which can be further processed into aviation-grade kerosene by another team, BTL to ORD Aviation-Grade Kerosene from Municipal Waste. The scope of this project includes solids handling, gasification, water-gas shift reaction, and a Rectisol process for syngas cleanup. Our product is an optimized syngas with a hydrogen to carbon monoxide ratio of 2.16 with trace impurities. It is intended to be bought and used for the Fischer-Tropsch process which produces synthetic paraffinic kerosene. The ultimate goal is to aid in reducing the growing landfill and pollution dilemma by repurposing MSW that would otherwise further contribute to the problem.