What is the cost of the AJT  Process per ton and how does it compare with other methods of waste disposable?

Initial estimates are that operating costs will be in the range of $200 - $300 per ton of waste.  This does not include revenue derived from sale of the glass product.  This compares well with the present costs of disposing of hazardous waste.  It is more expensive than that for a municipal waste landfill. However, when the long term costs of a municipal landfill are taken into account as well as the fact that valuable land is lost, the AJT Process is more competitive.

What happens to the hazardous and toxic material in the soil or waste when it is vitrified in the AJT Process?

The heat of the process causes chemical reactions in the toxic materials to break them down into non-hazardous components.  Organic materials including simple alcohols and dioxin/furans also decompose into their basic constituents.

What happens to any  metal that might be in the soil processed  by the AJT method?

Metals in the heated material are melted and tapped from the furnace for resale and purification. Any particles escaping are trapped by the air emission control system. In many cases the recovered metal could be a significant source of income.

Can the AJT Process handle a liquid hazardous or toxic waste?

The process can handle liquid material provided the liquid is first mixed with a medium to solidify it. Glassifiers can then be added to the solidified material and processed normally.

Is the AJT Process one of the new, exotic high tech industries that is still largely experimental?

No. The AJT Process is an innovative use of  Arc Furnace Technology that has been around for close to a century.  However, the Furnace Control System and the Air Emission Control System are very modern and utilize the most up to date equipment and technology.

Is the AJT vitrification method the best process to use in all cases of waste disposal or cleanup?

No. The AJT Process is most suited to serious hazardous waste streams that have a variety of constituents.  In other  cases, a simpler method such as bio-remediation  may be a more economical solution.

What happens if the AJT plant loses power? Will the waste gases escape into the atmosphere untreated?

No. The Process has a self limiting feature. If the power is lost, the carbon arc making the material molten will cease. With no arc, the top level of the material will soon cool and "crust" over. This solidification will prevent further release of toxic fumes. There will be an auxiliary power system to operate all components of the Air Emission System. Even though after a very short time, there will be no further emissions. (The amount of energy needed to maintain the carbon arc makes it impractical to have an auxiliary power system for this function.)

How is the AJT vitrification process different than similar processes that have not been successful in the past?

Past vitrification processes have attempted to encapsulate the toxic material into the glass itself. This has not generally been successful because over a period of time, because of a number of circumstances, the toxic material "leaks" or leaches out of the glass. This leaked material, or leachate as it is named, can severely contaminate ground water or cause other problems. The AJT Process, however, does not trap the toxic material into the glass. The heat of the arc furnace makes it possible to decompose hazardous material or to vaporize it and drive the fumes and vapors  from the glass. The gases driven off are captured in the Air Emissions System and prevented from entering the atmosphere. Therefore,  the glass or aggregate produced by the AJT Process has no trapped internal contamination in to leach out at a later time.

Is the glass aggregate product safe? Does it still have toxic material trapped inside?

(See answer for previous question.)

How big will the initial plant be that uses the AJT Process?

The AJT process is limited in volume only by furnace capacity, which is a function of material to be processed.  We feel that for a facility to be economically viable, no less that 60,000 to 80,000 tons of material should be processed  annually.  This will require two 7. 5 MW furnaces of a  size and configuration to maintain continual 24 hours per day, 7days per week operation.  If the need arises for additional capacity, additional furnaces would be added.  At a particular site, the volume of material to be processed would be  determined by financial resources, personnel, and the urgency of the speed of cleanup.  Generally speaking, the volume that could be processed would not be dependent on the technology,  but rather how intensive the process was to be.

What will it cost to build and equip a plant of this capacity?

It is estimated that the total cost for a fully operational plant will be approximately $10,000,000.

How long will it take to build and equip an processing plant of this size?

It is estimated that the plant could be designed and constructed in approximately two years.

How much material will that plant be able to clean up in a year?

The 80,000 tons per year figure given above is the total amount processed. Of this, about 20 % will be additives to assist in glass forming. Therefore, the amount of material that can be cleaned up, for example soil, is about 64,000 tons per year.

As an example to get a feel for the numbers- How long would it take for the plant just described to process the material from a 25 acre site that was excavated four feet deep to remove the contamination?

A 25 acre site, excavated to a depth of four feet, would yield approximately  200,500 tons of material.  At the  rate of 64,000 tons per year this would take about 3 years and six months.

How many employees would be needed to operate the plant ?

It will require about 40 employees to run the plant on a three shifts per day, 7 days a week basis.

What will be the annual payroll for the plant?

It will be approximately $2,750,000 per year.

What is left at a site where the AJT Process is used to clean it up?

The AJT Process lends itself to a complete makeover of the contaminated site. The final configuration depends on the results desired. Carried to completion, the AJT Process leaves a large hole in the ground in an area that is free from contamination. This excavation could be back filled, if desired, with the clean aggregate produced at that site. Additional clean soil can be added and the site landscaped as desired. An alternate use might be to grade and landscape the excavation to be a productive lake or pond. Because of its basic nature the AJT Process has the ability to take a very contaminated site and eventually turn it into a pristine location.

What happens to all the waste heat that the plant will generate?

The AJT Process will produce a very large amount of waste heat.  This heat has the potential to be a valuable resource for the process and the community area surrounding the  AJT plant. The waste heat can be reused in the process itself in drying incoming contaminated material. However, there are numerous potential uses for the waste heat in other applications where it can used to great advantage. It can be used in agricultural, industrial, municipal and recreational projects.

Click on the button below for discussion and list of potential uses and applications for the waste heat.

What are other potential uses of the glass product ?

Besides the construction aggregate already described, there are many possible uses for the glass product that must be investigated. Click on the button below for a discussion and list of some of these potential uses.

Can the AJT process be used to clean up radioactive material?

No. The AJT Process can vitrify radioactive material but it can not remove the radioactivity.

(Also see question and answer below.)

If the AJT Process has only been used for a one time Demonstration Project, how do you know that it will work on a continuous basis, processing large quantities of material?

The vitrification process has been used successfully in the nuclear industry to melt large quantities of radioactive material so that it can be poured into stainless steel containers for later storage. There is a modern arc vitrification facility that does this, located at the Savannah River Site operated by the US Department of Energy. The plant is called the  Defense Waste Processing Facility.  In effect, this facility does essentially the same function as a large plant using the AJT Process. However, the DOE plant has many more complications to deal with because of the radioactive material factor. The AJT Process is much simpler but does have the same basic functions as the DOE plant. The successful operating DOE plant proves that a simpler, large AJT Processing Plant is feasible and practical. Click on the button below to go to the DOE web site describing their vitrification facility.

What steps were taken during the Demonstration Process to insure that all of the testing and research was done properly and in accordance with good scientific practice?

An independent Peer Review Committee was established by Clemson University to oversee the conduct of the Demonstration and to insure that impartial, proper methods were used to conduct and evaluate the project. The committee was made up of scientists, educators and municipal officials.  At the end of the project the committee reviewed the findings and in April, 1998 issued a letter and report of concurrence and approval for it. Click on the button below for a list of members of the Peer Review Committee.

Typical Community and City Waste Disposal Situations and How the AJT Process Can help Solve the Problem

Our community is running out of space  in landfills for disposing of our garbage and sewer system sludge. How could the AJT Process solve this problem?

The AJT Process can be used to replace the function of a municipal landfill. However, for maximum efficiency, it is best to incorporate a pre-vitrification stage to the process. This process will dry and combust the landfill material to reduce its volume and turn it into ashes. The ashes from the initial phase are then vitrified. The sewage sludge can be dried by the waste heat from the process and then added to the material to be vitrified.  The fumes and gases from all of the steps of the process are collected and sent through the Process Air Emissions  System to remove particulate, odors or any harmful gases.  The end result is aggregate that can be used in road or driveway construction and can be sold.

Our community has several hundred acres of extremely valuable land that we can no longer use because they contain closed landfills. How could the AJT Process help solve this problem?

The closed landfills can be "mined" and reclaimed by the AJT Process. After the old landfill material is excavated, the process would continue as described for recycling landfill material in the answer to the previous question.

Our community has several abandoned industrial and brownfield sites on extremely valuable land. How could the AJT Process help solve this problem?

The soil and material from the sites can be readily recycled by the AJT Process. The site can be cleaned up to any level needed. If  desired, the sites could even be returned to a pristine condition. Click on button below for answer to related question.

My ocean side community has hundreds of acres of extremely valuable waterfront property that is covered by dredge spoil and can not be used. Most of this is either not contaminated or has very low levels of contamination. How could the AJT Process help with this problem?

As previously stated, the AJT Process can readily recycle dredge material. A quantity of the material processed during the demonstration was contaminated soil from Charleston harbor. The accumulated dredge spoil can be excavated and processed with an AJT Process plant. For maximum financial efficiency  such a plant should be used to process and recycle community sewage plant sludge and municipal landfill material also as described previously.  Over a period of time, the community’s landfill requirements could be eliminated and the hundreds of acres of valuable land could be available for its best use.

My community has a very large contaminated  site that seems to be an immediate threat to our groundwater and the lakes around it. Is there any way that the AJT Process can be of help in an "emergency" situation like this?

In many cases, existing buried waste poses an immediate threat to the ground water and existing lakes. However, building an AJT recycling plant takes time and the actual cleanup could take several more years. In this case, there are actually two different problems. The first is stopping the immediate threat and the second is to dispose of the waste in the long term by recycling it.

One practical solution to the immediate threat is possible, pending regulatory approval. The buried waste would be excavated and restored in sealed shipping cargo containers similar to those used for ocean going ships. If required, as an extreme measure, the containers openings could be welded shut to prevent any possible leaks.  These containers would then be earmarked and transported for future recycling by the AJT Process.

A proper storage site would be established for these containers at the future AJT plant location. Provisions for monitoring the containers for leaks, etc. would be established. The rugged nature of these containers make them well suited for moving and  stacking. Since the  containers are very durable and would be sealed they would be immune from major natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding and earthquakes.

Using this containerized method would eliminate any threat to ground water and put the hazardous waste into safe storage awaiting recycling. Instead of being a threat to the environment the waste would become just a sealed container of raw material waiting to be made into glass product.

My community is vitally interested in recruiting new  industry to locate here. How could the presence of an AJT Processing plant in my County (City) help that effort?

Many modern industries generate hazardous waste as a by-product of their operation. It is becoming increasingly expensive and difficult to find a way to dispose of this material. In most cases, it is necessary to transport this material hundreds of miles to go into a hazardous waste landfill. This is expensive and opens the waste generating company  to potential costly liability. The company is not only liable for any spill that might occur as the material is being transported, it is liable for the material it places in the landfill FOREVER.

If you had an AJT Processing plant in your community, it could service your existing and future industrial companies and their hazardous waste in much the same way as a Municipal Garbage Service does a community.  Hazardous material would be frequently collected at the plants and transported a short distance to the AJT facility. Companies would not have to collect large quantities of hazardous waste on their premises.  Also, companies would no longer have a long term liability for their hazardous material because it would no longer exist. It is recycled into a useful, harmless product. We  feel that having this option would be a strong inducement for a company to locate in a community.

It should be noted that the building of the AJT plant itself would be a big step in increasing your local industrial base. It would provide new jobs for about 40 people and have an annual payroll of approximately $2,750,000.

For further information about the process or about the opportunities in partnering with AJT Enterprises, Inc. contact:

AJT Enterprises, Inc.
2419 Santee River Road
St. Stephen, South Carolina 29479

(843) 567-4633;  (843) 567-4833 Fax

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