ABSTRACT

POME to Graphite
Methane Cracking for Profitable Methane Abatement
Juzer Jangbarwala - Pact Fuels, LLC – An Endeavour company

It is well known that methane emissions from Palm Oil Mill Effluent ponds at Palm Oil Mills increases the carbon footprint of palm oil. As much as mill owners would like to comply with environmental regulations, the economics of abating methane are extremely unfavorable.

This paper/presentation aims to share commercially demonstrated and piloted concepts to demonstrate the benefits of taking a wholistic and synergistic approach to unlocking the tremendous value locked in POME. An integrated waste management facility is described briefly, with focus on a proprietary methane cracking process with zero carbon footprint:

- Maximize Value from Green Methane:
o Graphene like graphitic materials: A proprietary catalytic methane cracking system is discussed to crack the methane and sequester the carbon as single crystal graphite. The graphitic material exhibits few layer graphene characteristics.
o Green Hydrogen: The methane cracking produces a co-product, green hydrogen.

Suggested large scale applications are discussed for the graphene like material, with a deep dive into their use for anaerobic digesters as a conductive additive and substrate to extract nutrients from the digestate.

A high-level mass balance for a 60 TPH - FFB palm oil mill is presented, including numbers for use of the co product green hydrogen in various applications:
- Hydrotreating CPO on site to produce Hydrogen Derived Renewable Diesel (HDRD)
- Conversion of CO2 to Methanol (MeOH).
- Producing green ammonia (NH3) on site for fertilizer use.

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