Researchers have developed a technology for processing barley residues from breweries into carbon fuel.
Every year, breweries throw hugethe amount of unspent grain, but chemists from the University of Queens in Belfast have found a cost-effective solution for converting this waste into useful products.
The method developed by the team consists of justseveral stages. First, the grain is dried, then subjected to two-stage chemical and thermal treatment using phosphoric acid, and then washedpotassium hydroxide. After this, activated carbon and valuable carbon nanotubes remain.
Granules can be formed from the final product and used as fuel for heating homes, producing water filters or coal for barbecues.
Because used chemical solutionsare publicly available and cheap, then such processing is cost effective. In addition to high rates of synthesis profitability, an additional benefit lies in the parallel disposal of industrial waste and resource saving.
Even the oil and gas company BP, which plans to build a new enterprise in Brazil and annually produce 2 billion liters of biofuel there, has become interested in this area.
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