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Our next Alphakat Seminar will take place on March, 6th in German, and on March, 7th and 8th in English, in our local branch in Eppendorf (Germany)

For further information please contact us at +49 9545 208 or [email protected]

Prehistory

The production of petroleum from organic material is researched and operated for over a hundred years. So far it works only with very low efficiency and serious pollution.

  • 1913 Friedrich Bergius discovered such a method.
  • 1923 Tropsch and Fischer developed the Fischer-Tropsch (FT) process.

The aim was to allow the oil poor Germany a self-supply of diesel oil for fuel supply and chemistry. The efficiency and environmental impact remained largely disregarded. International was based on the FT process intensively eg research at VEBA and Ruhrkohle AG and developed. In Germany, operating plants have been shut down years ago due to low efficiency and high pollution according to this principle. In example, But SA, United States and China will continue to build and operate such facilities. If the process efficiency due to high process temperatures, with approximately 30 to 50%, however, is totally inadequate and continues to lead to huge waste of valuable resources and great pollution.

The KDV-Process

Early 21st century Dr. Christian Koch succeeded with the ingenious breakthrough for highly efficient and not polluting method of conversion of organic material in full diesel (EN 590). In the unpressurized low temperature process produces no toxic gases, there are no chimneys and exhaust gas torches. There is nothing burned.

Leader in the research on this technique for more than 40 years, amongst others with SIEMENS, was Dr. Koch, the owner of patents for KDV process and CEO of Alphakat GmbH, Buttenheim and Eppendorf. The intensively operated research and development in recent years at Alphakat GmbH has today led to a state of the art, which ensures the highest standard quality of the diesel oil, as well as the efficiency of the plants.

Globally there is no provider that can offer such a state of the art technology.

Key Facts

KDV technology – nature as example

Organic substances as brown coal, petroleum, plastic waste and plants as well as plant remains which do not come from the food chain are transformed chemically catalytically (not thermally!) into high-quality diesel oil, bitumen and water thanks to the patented KDV process.

The transformation of organic substances into diesel oil or bitumen of highest quality takes place pressureless –just as in nature– at low temperatures (less than 250 °C), but only in a few minutes in lieu of millions of years. (Organic substances with a high percentage of catalyst –just as brown coal– can be added to organic substances having only insufficient catalyst).

Global benefits

  • Efficient handling of fossil resources – no impact on the environment
  • Reduction of costs for electricity and fuels
  • With the KDV process, it is possible to completely replace fossil fuels by renewable organic substances as plant, plant waste, wood chips and similar on a long-term basis.
  • Nuclear power plants with special risks, in case of which the disposal of waste without any damage is still not clarified today, should also be a thing of the past in the future.

An efficient process

  • Example brown coal: When brown coal is transformed to diesel or bitumen in the KDV process with following conversion into electricity; approx. 2/3 of the brown coal is saved in brown coal power plants. (The percentage of bitumen depends on the natural percentage of ash in the brown coal.)
  • Example crude oil: Due to a change in the petroleum refinery to the KDV process, the efficiency degree increases from approx. 60% to approx. 93% compared with the traditional pyrolyse technology. Consequently, a 50% higher efficiency results.

A clean process

A large part of the substances used is burnt with the traditional thermal energy production. The toxic substances generated escape with the water vapour into the environment.
The KDV process carried out at low temperature ( less than 250 °C) exclusively produces diesel, bitumen and water. Environmental toxins as dioxin, furans, olefins, resins, coke and methane are even not generated in the KDV process due to the low process temperature.

An easy process

  • No water is necessary for the process
  • Uncomplicated installation engineering by a pressure low temperature process and a closed system
  • Relatively low investment and maintenance cost
  • Easy and dangerless operation

Alphakat GmbH is the leading company delivering a patented technology transforming any organic material (biomass, plastic waste, brown coal or crude oil) to synthetic diesel.

Our process mimics and accelerates the natural process of crude oil formation and is now in serial production,

The highly efficient, low temperature, low pressure, zero emissions and non toxic process is called “Catalytic Pressureless Depolymerization“ (KDV) and is the result of 40 years of research.

At Alphakat our driving force is to reduce air pollution and to economize fossile resources by helping to establish an environmentally friendly technology.

History

100 years have lapsed between the first Nobel Prize honoured discovery of coal liquefaction and Koch’s new development of KDV coal-to-liquids.

The extremely profitability and the absolute environmental friendliness resulting from the efficiency and the simplicity of apparatus of the new procedure are revolutionary!

In 1913, the employee H. Speckens transformed the carbonisation product of peat into a benzene similar organic liquid at 450 °C and under a hydrogen pressure of 150 atm in the private lab of Friedrich Bergius. Further trials with brown and black coal also produced the benzene similar organic liquid. Still in the same year, Friedrich Bergius filed a patent application for a procedure for “coal-to-liquids” – the Bergius-Pier process.

In 1931, the Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded jointly to Friedrich Bergius and the chemist and chairman of the board of directors of the I.G. Farben, Carl Bosch, “in recognition to the invention and development of chemical high pressure methods”.

In 1923, Fischer and Tropsch further developed this technology. In Germany as well as in other parts of the world, scientist intensively worked on the procedure of coal liquefaction known under the term of FT to improve this technology which was too expensive compared with the production of fuels from crude oil. Today, systems which were manufactured based on this procedure are still in operation in South Africa and China. In Germany and Europe, existing plants were shut down already decades ago due to the high environmental burden and the economic inefficiency. Also China decided against further investments in this – meanwhile obsolete – technology in view of the high costs, the extreme high consumption of water and the unbearable environmental burden.

Following recent information, also the Iran decided in favour of the KDV technology.

In 1973, the chemist Dr. Christian Koch started to work with this technology. First, 17 years at SIEMENS which, however, closed the research institute. Dr. Koch received the patents granted until that moment instead of a redundancy payment and continued to develop this technology on his own. The discovery that a transformation of organic materials into oil was possible even without the presently usual high pressure and the relatively high temperature was pioneering. First, he successfully applied the developed process of KDV (katalytische drucklose Verölung – catalytic pressureless depolymerisation) using the added catalyst to process biomasses and similar. With the further development of the industrial manufacturing equipment it became possible to transform even brown coal into diesel oil. The KDV process also facilitates a transformation of all other organic materials as plants, wood, plastic, etc. to diesel oil – economically efficiently and without environmental burden. The energy of the future.

The relatively low KDV system costs, low operating costs (e.g. no water necessary! Own energy supply) and the very high efficiency (about 95%) make extremely low production costs possible with the transformation of – for example – brown coal (no addition of a catalyst necessary) into diesel oil of first quality according to EN 590 – and without burdening the environment. There are no chimneys and no exhaust gas torch in KDV systems. (With the first use of KDV technology in refineries, the revenue gained from crude oil increases by approx. 50%.) In case of systems with an hourly output of for example nominal 125,000 l/h and coal costs of 25 € / t, a price per litre diesel oil (EN 590) of approx. 0.16 euro / l is achieved. In case of comparable system sizes based on the FT process technology, the production costs are much higher. The vast costs of the significant environmental burden are not taken into consideration.

The implementation of this – compared with the old technology – new KDV technology, which is revolutionary in many aspects, is a MUST for the world if it does not want to disappear in smog and continue to consume fossil resources disrespectfully. 

Dr. Koch

Contact

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Postal address:
Alphakat GmbH, Schulstrasse 8, 96155 Buttenheim, Germany · Tel +49 9545 208, Fax +49 9545 950 325 · [email protected]

KDV seminars:
Freiberger Str. 222, 09575 Eppendorf, Germany

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