Energy requirements are of central importance for many production methods.
Due to ever more stringent official regulations that energy-producing industrial companies have to comply with and against the background of the steadily decreasing availability of fossil fuel resources, prices to cover energy needs are also steadily on the rise. This often poses a threat to the producing industry’s capability to remain competitive.
Production methods that use a lot of energy, such as the production of aluminium, cement, lime, steel and a whole range of different chemical products, are particularly affected by this. On top of this, the concern about the sustainability of our energy supply is growing, especially in light of the political will to bring about alternative sources of energy. It is therefore prudent to check any energy-containing by-products or waste being generated unintentionally and unavoidably as a matter of course as to whether they might be suitable as a secondary source of energy.
For each and every enquiry AGNAT receives, the company therefore tests and assesses the respective product for its potential use as an energy source based on its chemical, technical and energy qualities. In the event of a direct application as a primary or secondary source of energy not being possible, AGNAT has a range of reconditioning options at its disposal, such as distillation, filtration or neutralisation, which may render such substances still suitable for use as energy sources.
Energy Sources
The evaluation methodology which AGNAT has applied to all enquiries it has received since its inception in 2000, has over the course of the company’s business operations identified the following material groups as particularly well-suited for energy generation:
- Solid and paste-like hard coal and lignite coal-based products
- Solid organic materials
- Distillation residues
- Solvents and their mixtures
- Residual oils
- Aromatic hydrocarbons
Heavy oil components
The recycling of high-boiling hydrocarbon compounds is one of AGNAT’s main specialties. In particular the production and distillation processes in the chemical industry, but also in the oleochemical industry, produces many by-products or cogenerated products which by all means match the quality of heavy fuel oils in terms of their consistency. For such products AGNAT can offer interesting economic solutions – depending on the individual assessment of the products. As such hydrocarbon compounds are primarily products of temperate heat they tend to pose special demands in terms of storage, transportation and logistics. AGNAT offers its customers the handling of the entire supply chain, “from producer to consumer”, thereby ensuring that the customer has only one point of contact and never has to deal with any processing or interface problems.