China Grants Patent for ThermoFuel Process

TFP will allow new or existing wastewater treatment plants in China to convert their sewage sludge into fuel, while also enhancing the recovery of ammonia from the plants' digesters to make fertilizer. Nothing will leave the plant but clean water and saleable commodities in the form of a high-energy biomass- derived fuel and a commercial grade fertilizer.

TFP is a hydrothermal process that uses heat and pressure to convert sewage sludge, a byproduct of municipal wastewater treatment plants, into a high-energy fuel. When either TFP or EnBP are combined with the company's ammonia recovery technologies, it will mark the first time that municipal wastewater treatment plant operators will be able to eliminate their primary waste byproducts totally onsite.

"The issuance of the TFP patent will allow the company to begin implementation of this strategy," said Dennis Cossey, CEO of ThermoEnergy.

The US Department of Commerce's 2005 report entitled Water Supply and Wastewater Treatment Market in China projects that China will spend upward of (US) $22 billion on water and wastewater infrastructure by 2013.