Lakson awarded via Bio-Énergie Nord Inc. (BEN) with a project to convert heating systems to biomass at the CEN research station (and other commercial buildings to follow) in the greater northern Quebec region. The facility will use innovative technology developed by Lakson to use biomass for fully automated, fully integrated, unattended, and highly efficient heating of the center including process, space, and hot water.
BEN/Lakson plans to design, supply, implement and test its latest residential/institutional heating system using biomass pellets in the far North of Canada prior to full deployment in the regions.
Validation of sizing, performance, components, and pre-selection of the units (including data collection activities obtained by the CEN) will be used to finalize the design, fabrication, and supply of material and equipment.
M. Simo Lakhmiri, the president of Lakson International Co.
They presented various know how and innovations in the field of valorization of organic waste, whether from forest, municipal or other residual sources, to a number of value-added derivatives including biofuel, biosolids , syngas , bio oil, H2 (hydrogen), CH4 (methane) and other valuable end-products, including but not limited to BIO-Fertilizer.
Today, Lakson and its affiliates are involved in major power conversion projects to biomass, many of which concern upgrading existing installations with a minimum of interventions or modification in order to fire or combust (renewal energy) residuals, displacing fossil fuels and decreasing the carbon foot print of numerous industries
Lakson actively collaborates with a number of universities across the world, bringing its innovative approach to support an environmentally friendly, viable and economic transition towards green energy and agriculture projects.
Upstream and down stream of digesters, we bring various solutions including the conditioning of residues from the operations into useful components, such as biosolids to be fired in suspension/semi gasification technologies with a controled, highly modulated, high intensity flame with near instantaneous turn-down / ramp-up capabilities .
The International bioenergy congress came to a conclusion with a significant amount of valuable connections and network growth of large potential end-users and collaborators in a world starving for green energy.
Lakson completed phase 1 for the wastewater treatment project implementing its intellectual property methodology. The project includes removing oil and grease, recovering products while treating the wash water for reuse, recycling the clean stream for washing purposes extracting suspended solid parts to be valorized producing valuable products.
Since 1998, Lakson has been a leading provider of value-added solutions, assisting numerous wood industry municipalities worldwide in enhancing their environments. Our focus at Lakson lies in waste valorization, encompassing a range of processes such as biomass plastic/tire/rubber recycling, oil sludge treatment, paper recycling, and sewage sludge management.
Benefiting from our technical expertise and the favorable market conditions in Canada and internationally, Lakson and its associates have achieved remarkable advancements in waste recycling and valorization systems. Our commitment to research and development has enabled us to develop cutting-edge technologies in this field.
Key highlights of Lakson’s offerings include:
Advanced technological innovation for efficient waste management
Environmentally friendly protection systems
Cost-effective solutions with high economic performance
A versatile scope of application
Our wood chips, sawdust, and biochar production process stands out for its ability to convert wood residues into high-quality charcoals without causing harm to the environment.
Since 2012, Lakson has been at the forefront of biomass transformation, unlocking its commercial potential by recycling wood residues to produce biochar, activated carbon, and briquette charcoal.
Among their redevelopment projects in Canada, Lakson Team is currently mandated by a multinational mining company. “The company produces carbon residues that it wants to recycle, in which there are undesirable components for combustion such as fluorine or chlorine.
With its knowledge of the chemical and mechanical engineering team, Lakson via its affiliate is, therefore, able to propose a process to produce a homogeneous and clean biofuel, thus replacing natural gas in a thermal power plant in Quebec. »
Residual materials are a scourge on the entire planet. Our team is currently working on a major project to recover 5,000 tons of organic matter per day in the suburbs of Mexico City.
Following sorting, Lakson’s process lines allow the production of biofertilizer, pyrolytic oil, biochar, biogas and transport pallet molded with wood residues.
At the beginning of 2019, Lakson began studying a project to convert the heating systems of homes (and potentially other residential and commercial buildings) in the far north of Canada, particularly those of the Wemindji municipality in Quebec, to the use of forestry biomass, a product that is widely available in Canada and in the region of Wemindji.
The aim of the project is to replace the existing heating systems that use heavy oil, incidentally eliminating the negative environmental, safety and health impacts that they cause, such as, air pollution and contribution to climate change due to greenhouse gas emissions during the oil’s extraction, transportation and combustion, and the contamination of soil, groundwater and even house foundations, due to oil leaks.
Before launching a full-scale conversion of residential heating systems in Wemindji, Lakson conducted a feasibility study. This study began with a visit to Wemindji, in March 2019, to collect key data necessary to evaluate the project’s feasibility. It also included the visit of different manufacturers of biomass heaters, as well as the preliminary evaluation of biomass resourcing options and the preliminary design of a biomass distribution system, among many activities. The feasibility study, which was completed in April, demonstrated that the project has great potential in terms of environmental benefits, as well as savings for the community.
Residential Homes in Wemindji
The next step for this project, which is to be
performed shortly, is the implementation of Lakson’s pilot biomass heater in
one of the houses that were visited. For this, Lakson will send a team to
Wemindji to install the unit, start it up and train the
occupants to use it. This team will compile data during the start-up to
incorporate in the final report, which will then be produced to analyze the
pilot unit and draw conclusions on its functioning and potential. Furthermore,
this will help validate or infirm the conclusions from the feasibility study and
it will help formulate recommendations on the potential of fully developing
this type of project at a large scale in Wemindji and formulate the next steps
to be taken in order to bring this project to fruition.
Over the past several years, we, at Lakson, have been investigating the problem of sargassum invasion in the Caribbean.
Sargassum, is a type of brown algae that forms
in the ocean and that has recently started drifting onto the Caribbean islands,
as well as the Mexican Gulf Coast, causing many undesired consequences, some of
which are:
Pollution of touristic beaches
and sites and generation of repulsive smells, which cause a decrease in
touristic activity.
Can cause eye irritation,
respiratory irritation, skin irritation, nausea, vomiting and migraines for the
people exposed.
Requires costly collection and cleaning
operations.
Disrupts sea navigation and
fishing.
Destroys ecosystems; kills
fishes and prohibits corals growth.
Damages the soil and
environment when stockpiled or landfilled.
Invasion of sargassum on Quintana Roo beaches
Through our
studies, we have examined and analyzed the different stabilizing and
valorization approaches that were proposed by other companies and we have
developed our own innovative solution to this problem. Our efforts have led us
to a solution that consists in conditioning and valorizing the sargassum as
soon as it is brought to shore in order to limit its decay and reduce the
emissions of ammonia, methane and hydrogen sulfide, therefore making it more
ecological than the more conventional biodigestion approach. Furthermore, our
solution generates virtually no residual by-product and is much more compact,
easier to maintain and economical than its counterpart.
More recently,
in early July, Lakson’s team went to the Quintana Roo region of Mexico to meet
various industrials, government officials and scholars/universities, in order
to assess the current situation with the algae and propose our solution and
services. Our team has been met with positive feedback and we are currently developing
the initial phases of several studies and projects together with local partners
such as a local university and other key players in Mexico.
Lakson team during presentation of its innovative technology in collaboration with a university in Quintana Roo and key industrials
Last September, Lakson diffused news of a project in development to implement a 10m3/h pilot plant for the treatment of Maotai wine effluent in China. Since then, Lakson has procured and arranged the transportation of the process’ equipment to the site and, in early October, has sent a team to the town of Maotai, China, to erect and start-up the pilot plant.
The installation work was completed
without major incident while the start-up activities were punctuated by local
inherent site problems, which in the end were fortunately all solved by our
on-site team. All criteria pertaining to the quality of the effluent, after its
treatment in our pilot plant, was comfortably met.
Our client being satisfied with the
result, he has shown interest in a second generation of Lakson’s Maotai wine
effluent treatment plant; one that would be automated, more compact and an
improvement over its pilot version.
In fact, our client has requested
that we develop new larger treatment plants with capacities ranging from 10m3/h
to 40m3/h, as well as a mobile and extremely compact plant that
could fit in two containers and treat 6m3/h of effluent.
We, at Lakson, are excited about these new diverse projects and are confident that we will successfully complete them; effectively helping Maotai wine producers in treating their effluent in an efficient and economical manner and in reducing their environmental footprint.
Since the recent purchase of our BCS
2000 installed in China from our original client in Wuhan by another industrial
in Nanning, our team has been helping the two of them with the implementation
of our technology and its adaptation to fit the needs of the new client.
Indeed, unlike the original client who used the BCS 2000 to treat municipal
waste in the form of sludge to produce fertilizer, the new user of the BCS 2000
desired to treat wood waste, mainly in the form of bark; a change of raw
material for which some tuning had to be made to ensure the proper functioning
of our system.
After having made the main adjustments, our team, with the help of the
new client, conducted performance tests on the BCS 2000 using the new type of raw
material. The BCS 2000 was tested with wet bark (at
around 60% moisture content) and was able to treat over two Tonnes per hour of
this biomass, effectively reducing its moisture content to about 25%.
Additionally, the tests demonstrated that the machine was running continuously
for the required period of time without defaulting. These results are more than
satisfactory as we have reached and maintained the machine’s target capacity. At
the client’s request, the system is now being upgraded to achieve even greater
performance and reach a capacity up to 50% greater than the actual one.
In parallel, Lakson is currently in the process of developing the BCS 3000, which will have a capacity ranging from three to five Tonnes per hour depending on the condition of the material at the inlet and outlet of our system. With our newest generation of BCS around the corner, we are making the most of our opportunity to optimize the current machine and learn valuable lessons which will be implemented in the design of our newest BCS to make it reach high levels of performance. In this prospect, the latest results obtained with the BCS 2000 are extremely promising and we are extremely excited about our projects in development.