Biodiesel does not smell

Scientists are trying to solve the energy crisis with baby diapers

In Canada, fuel will soon be made using infants and bedridden patients. Children are needed to produce a critical raw material: biodiesel fuel will be produced from used diapers. This waste will be processed in a special installation that AMEC Corporation intends to build in Quebec, Canada. Businessmen are going to launch this plant in a year and a half.

There are several points of interest in this diaper technology. For example, the processing technology itself, the details of which are not fully disclosed. AMEC says that the basis of the process will be pyrolysis, that is, heating this “baby waste” without access to air. As a result, complex molecules break down into simpler ones. However, ordinary diesel fuel consists of heavy fractions of oil, that is, the hydrocarbons it contains have a very complex structure. But classical pyrolysis processes, on the contrary, produce very primitive compounds at the output. So, for example, after the decomposition of cellulose, charcoal and various carbon oxides remain in the heated chamber; all other compounds make up only fractions of a percent. When pyrolyzing oil fractions or natural gas, for the most part, not too complex molecules like ethylene or propylene are obtained. In order to obtain diesel fuel from this, a series of more complex chemical reactions are required.

It’s hard to imagine what will come out of the pyrolysis of a dirty diaper. Nowadays, almost space technology is used in the manufacture of these hygiene items. The diaper of the 21st century differs from the traditional cotton rags that mothers used several decades ago, like an electric locomotive from a cart. It is probably not difficult to assume that when decomposing a high-tech diaper, a chemist will receive a very rich set of simple molecules that will still require some kind of sorting.

True, another problem - the availability of a “renewable source” of raw materials - clearly will not have to be solved. The amount of disposable diapers thrown into the trash in developed countries amounts to hundreds of thousands and millions of tons per year. The “conveyor” of dirty diapers is not hampered even by the demographic crisis, from which all countries of the Western world suffer to one degree or another. At least according to one of the top managers of the Quebec branch of AMEC, Luciano Picciacchia, before a child learns to use a potty, he will use a ton of diapers. In this case, all this fragrant mass will go, at best, to a waste incineration plant. So, if separate collection of diapers is established, the flow of raw materials for the experimental installation is ensured.

However, it is not very clear to what extent such technology will be justified from an economic point of view. On the one hand, with current prices for fossil hydrocarbons, fuel can probably be made from anything and still remain in the black. And if this is an exaggeration, it is not too great. Since one of the hottest topics in the energy sector in recent years has been the processing of agricultural crops into biofuels, it means that the world economy is ready to buy up any diesel fuel, whether from diapers or toilet paper. On the other hand, the pyrolysis of infant waste must take a huge amount of energy, since this procedure requires quite high temperatures - about 500-600 degrees Celsius. However, Piciacchia himself claims that, according to preliminary estimates, the cost of a liter of biodiesel obtained from dirty diapers will be only 50 cents.

Mikhail MANSKOY