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Jen-Zero: Novel Biomass Technology

The novel Jen-Zero™ technology is designed for feeding biomass and MSW feedstocks into high-pressure environments.

Overview

Novel Jen-Zero™ technology

Feeding biomass and waste feedstocks into a high-pressure, high-temperature environment is an important application in the biofuels industry. Many biofuels conversion technologies involve feeding biomass materials into high-pressure, high-temperature reactors. Delivering feedstock reliably across this pressure barrier is no simple task, especially when the feedstock is difficult to handle materials like biomass and MSW.

Many of the existing technologies for feeding materials into high-pressure environment that are based on use of plug-screw-feeders have to overcome challenges with pressure blow back. On the other hand, existing technologies based on lock-hoppers have to overcome challenges with arching/bridging associated with feeding material into a high pressure environment. Getting a continuous discharge from a typical lock-hopper system can be a problem too as these systems usually work in batch process mode. Thus, being able to reliably feed a pressurized reactor can make or break the success of any such biofuels or waste-to-energy plant.

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Solution

The Jen-Zero™ Solution

To address this challenge, Jenike & Johanson has developed a novel technology, called Jen-Zero™, to feed low bulk density materials like biomass and MSW into high pressure, high-temperature environments. This patent-pending technology is focused on reducing consolidation of feedstock during handling, minimizing springback of biomass materials, and providing continuous discharge into pressurized environment using a novel lock-hopper-based system design. This Jen-Zero™ technology will be available for licensing.

Jenike & Johanson has more than five decades of experience in designing handling systems for various challenging materials like biomass and MSW. We also have significant experience in design of lock hoppers, making important contributions since early 1980s. Leveraging our experience in biomass handling and lock-hopper design, we have developed this unique, patent-pending Jen-Zero™ technology that can reliably feed biomass and MSW feedstocks into high-pressure, high-temperature environments such as biofuel reactors. We are excited about this new technology and will be happy to discuss further with you on this topic.