Startech Environmental Corp. (Wilton, CT) announced that it has signed a contract valued at approximately $500,000 to produce and demonstrate a commercial-size StarCell™ system for the US Department of Energy (DOE, Washington, DC) to produce hydrogen derived from processing waste through the Startech Plasma Converter™. The work will be performed in Startech's Technology Park facility in Bristol, CT. The program is scheduled for completion in six months.
Waste will be put into the Startech Plasma Converter where it will be irreversibly destroyed and converted into Plasma Converter Gas (PCG)™, which is a clean synthesis gas mixture rich in hydrogen. The PCG will then be fed into the company's StarCell system to separate the hydrogen from the PCG to produce StarCell Hydrogen™ for energy and power. The balance of the PCG, comprised principally of carbon-based molecules, can also be used for energy and power.
Karl Hale, Startech vice president of Engineering, said, "The support of the Department of Energy will help move our StarCell system much closer to full-scale production and deployment. Our principal product, the Plasma Converter System, safely processes wastes of all sorts. In a manner of speaking, when StarCell is joined to the Plasma Converter, you can literally throw banana skins in one end and get hydrogen out the other."
