How Centrifuges Are Used for Renewable Energy Practices

Protecting the environment has always been an essential activity for sustaining life on earth. Unfortunately, what’s good for nature hasn’t always been good for business. This has prevented political will from backing conservation efforts. That changed in 2016 when 178 parties and 195 members of UNFCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) signed the Paris Climate Accord. It aims to start an implementation programme in 2020 that will adapt to climate change and reduce global emissions of greenhouse gases.

Individual UNFCC members are already applying actions and policies in accordance with the accord. France currently uses coal to generate electricity, but intends to stop by 2022. She also intends to ban diesel and petrol in cars by means of a five-year plan set to culminate in 2040. China has imposed environmental regulations on copper, tin, and aluminium production, cutting down pollution levels in the metal industry and general reliance on coal.

National responses to climate change

She has committed to peaking her carbon dioxide emissions in 2030 and declining ever after. In Australia, the National Energy Guarantee (NEG) is in the process of redesign and evaluation by the Council of Australian Governments Energy Council (COAG). The aim is to promote renewable energy by making it cheaper, cleaner, and more plentiful. As for the US, President Trump has announced his plans to exit the accord in 2020, which is the earliest possible date for opting out of the accord.

Renewable energy includes power generated from solar panels, wind turbines, water-based sources, steam force, and organic sources (e.g. biomass). Thy contrast finite sources like fossil fuel (oil, petroleum, coal, liquid gas etc.). Renewable energy is cleaner, because it emits less carbon dioxide and toxins, both when producing and utilising these green sources. In theory, renewable energy can be re-used and recycled, so it will never run out.

Defining renewable energy

As an example, biogas comes from rotting waste, and when it’s used up, it biodegrades and re-joins the waste cycle. Wind and solar radiation are perpetual, unless the earth stops moving and the sun burns out. Steam can condense into water, which can be re-boiled to create more steam. And the same water source can be used and re-used in an endless spinning turbine to generate electricity and movement.

Interestingly, while water-based power is renewable, water itself is not. 70% of the earth’s surface is water, but less than 5% of that water is accessible in a form we can use. The other 95% is over-salted sea and ocean water, which we have to desalinate before we can use it. Desalination is effective, but expensive. Out of that 5%, some is in the form of water vapour, clouds, precipitation, or underground water tables we can’t reach.

Actual water vs accessible water

And yet the little we have, we pollute. When we use water, we pour it into our sewer systems where it’s treated then released beneath the ocean. It could take centuries for that water to pass through the earth, eliminate all toxins, and get back to us in usable form. By cleaning industrial wastewater before it gets into the sewers, we shorten that process, because the sewers can’t treat industrial poisons – only organic ones.

Centrifugal separators are used to filter wastewater so it can be re-used or safely emptied into the sewers. The solid products derived from this process can sometimes be repurposed as agricultural fertiliser, laundry products, or kitchen additives. This mostly applies to edible sludge derived from filtration in the food and beverage industry. Examples include potato starch and fruit pulp. The fruit pulp results from juice and wine processing.

Managing solid refuse

In cases where the solid waste is unusable, it can still be burned or buried. Its dryness and lightweight compact proportion means less fuel is used to incinerate or transport it, which results in net conservation benefits. Centrifuges aren’t just used to filter wastewater. They can also be combined with magnetic fields to filter cutting fluids and coolants. The process removes bio germs from biofuel, making it burn cleaner with minimal harmful emissions.

Centrifugal filtration extracts metal shards, glass fragments, and other contaminants. Without removal, these particles damage factory equipment, causing it to stall and break down, reducing its overall lifespan. That means more resources have to be used to buy and build new machines. In this sense, rotary filters play a seemingly small, cumulative role in supporting the renewable energy industry.