USA – World Waste Technologies seeks MSW gasification patent

World Waste Technologies, Inc has announced it has filed a provisional patent covering an energy self sufficient process for the treatment of municipal solid waste (MSW) into the production of mixed alcohols (including ethanol) through a synthetic gas and catalyst process. The process also includes the co-generation of renewable electricity from a producer gas as well as a process for efficiently separating the resulting mixed alcohols from hydrocarbons and other liquids.



To date, World Waste has focused on converting MSW into a cellulose biomass which the Company currently refines into an unbleached fiber known in the paper industry as “wetlap pulp”. The Company has also been investing in potential improvements to the core process designed to produce fuel grade alcohols, including ethanol, as well as processes for co-generating renewable electricity.



Ethanol and Co-Generated Renewable Energy



The Company has also been pursuing the development of various energy products which can be produced from MSW. One process which we believe has potential for successful commercialization involves using gasification technologies to produce a synthetic gas from various products in our process. This gas may then be passed through a catalyst environment to produce fuel grade alcohols, primarily ethanol, with some portion of the gas stream co-generating renewable electricity. We believe this same basic approach can also be used to produce hydrogen, a critical element in many current industrial processes and to several future clean energy platforms. In this area the Company recently filed a provisional patent covering a process and certain conditions which may maximize the yield of the fuel alcohols including the beneficial co-generation of renewable electricity through a producer gas which may drive a steam or a gas turbine.



Also in the ethanol area, in addition to the above process for producing fuel alcohols through gasification, the Company is investigating alternative pathways for transforming its cellulose biomass product into ethanol using various acid and enzymatic hydrolysis processes.



Pulp Process



In the MSW/cellulose biomass to wetlap pulp product area at its Anaheim, California Plant, World Waste has processed, over a seven month period, over 2,500 tons of MSW into cellulose biomass, which has been refined into over 400 tons of wetlap pulp. Although we have not yet been able to produce product in commercial quantities, the wetlap product has been supplied to three corrugating medium manufacturers in Southern California over this period on a test basis. The customers have recently provided positive feedback on the pulp quality and specifications, based upon these limited test quantities. World Waste recently developed a commercial relationship with one of these customers whereby that customer, although not contractually obligated to do so, is currently purchasing all the product World Waste is capable of producing at market prices consistent with terms commonly used for the sale of recycled corrugated containers, OCC, exported from the Los Angeles region.



The start up and operation of the Anaheim Plant was made possible through a series of equipment upgrades financed from the proceeds of our Series B offering completed in the first half of 2006.



Key challenges that faced at the Anaheim Plant include an unexpectedly high level of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) from organic wastes in the wastewater generated in the pulp screening and cleaning process, and design issues related to the steam classification vessels which will require some level of re-engineering and repairs to enable sustained operations. These factors currently restrict full scale, profitable operations at the Anaheim Plant and have led to management‘‘s decision to reduce the workforce and to run the plant on an intermittent basis for process improvement trials, technology demon