Continuous thermochemical conversion process to produce oil from swine manure

Thermochemical conversion (TCC) of livestock manure is a novel technology that has shown very promising results in treating waste and producing oil. A batch TCC system that was previously developed successfully converted 70% of swine manure volatile solids to oil and reduced manure chemical oxygen demand by ??? 75%. The necessary retention time to achieve an oil product was largely dependent on the operating temperature. The highest oil production efficiency was 80% of the volatile solids (or 70 wt % of the total solids). The average carbon and hydrogen contents were ??? 72 and 9%, respectively. The heating values for 80% of the oil products ranged from 32,000 to 36,700 kJ/kg. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the AWMA 97th Annual Conference and Exhibition (Indianapolis, IN 6/22-25/2004).