Sewage treatment plant smells success in synthetic gas trial

In an Australian-first, Logan City Council will use the gasification process to dramatically shrink the volume of waste needing to be trucked off site and produce syngas to power the facility.

Once wastewater is treated to kill off harmful pathogens and bacteria, the remaining biosolids will be heated to high temperatures to produce a synthetic gas made up of mostly hydrogen, carbon monoxide, methane and carbon dioxide.

In conjunction with a new solar installation, the project will cut the carbon emissions of the plant and make the sewage treatment process almost entirely energy neutral. The Council aims to market the residual biochar from the gasification process as an environmentally friendly soil fertiliser.

Annually producing about 34,000 tonnes of biosolids from its catchment of 300,000 people, the Loganholme Wastewater Treatment Plant currently uses an energy intensive drying process to remove moisture from the sewage sludge so it can be trucked away and used to fertilise farms.

As well as being expensive, transporting the biosolids produces additional carbon emissions and misses the opportunity to produce energy from the waste product.

Logan City Council’s Acting Road and Water Infrastructure Director Daryl Ross said the project seeks to find a viable and sustainable way to deal with the byproducts from the sewage treatment process.

“At present, six truckloads of biosolids are taken 300 kilometres to Darling Downs for land application each day. That costs $1.8 million annually and accounts for 30 per cent of the operating costs of the plant,” Ross said.

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