Barbecue without smoke and soot
Aachen, Germany (ANTARA News) - Saulo Seabra creates charcoal from
biodegradable wastes. This not only enables him to grill sausages - but perhaps one day it will help save the rainforests of his Brazilian homeland.
The small black balls which Saulo Seabra pulls from a cardboard box are surprisingly light. The so-called pellets seem to beg to be touched.
"This looks like coal," says the 30-year-old scientist at the Aachen Technical University's institute for processing, coking plants and briquetting systems.
In fact, the pellets consist almost entirely of carbon. The basic ingredients are hay, ground tree-bark and chopped greens. In a special process, oxygen and hydrogen are extracted, leaving as residue a fuel with a high energy density but without smoke or soot.
For their business idea with the black fuel, Seabra and his German student-colleague Stephan Hungeling won first prize and start-up capital of 10,000 euros (12,000 dollars) in a competition for innovative entrepreneurs sponsored by the Aachen business community.
But both first want to complete their doctoral studies and then seriously think about entering the market. Saulo Seabra knows that the Germans like to barbecue a lot. And in view of the advantages of his pellets he can well imagine that they would also grill their sausages over a fire made from bio-fuel.
The bio-waste pellets, Seabra feels, are also suited to bigger tasks - such as domestic heating. They provide 50 per cent more energy than pellets made of charcoal of the same size.
A long-range goal that he has set his sights on is finding applications in the steel industry. In this regard, he is also thinking of his home country. There, sections of the rainforest are vanishing into many an steel smelting furnaces. This was also what triggered his idea to carry out research into alternative fuels.
His first research project, which involved processing the ash wastes from steel furnaces, was what brought the man from the Brazilian metropolis of Belo Horizonte to the German university city of Aachen. A lot of things are different compared to his homeland, but Saulo Seabra feels at ease in the small German city on the border with the Netherlands. The pharmacist knows him, and the lady in the bakery shop as well. The people are reliable, something he likes.
And the Brazilian values the passionate feelings of the Germans.
This is something he notices during the carnival season and in the football stadium where Alemannia Aachen, a second division team, plays. Then there is the sausage stand man at the weekly market: "The sausage man is thinking, how can I make my stand more attractive? This is passion," says a person who knows something about the subject. But if anyone asks him about his favourites for the World Cup, the passionate football fan is somewhat reticent.
"We (Brazil) are playing against the entire continent," he says, in reference to his home country's status as favourite. "This will make the task twice as difficult."
Contact: Press office Technische Hochschule Aachen,
Telephone: +49-(241)-80 94 326
Media Service: www.mediaservice.land-of-ideas.org
COPYRIGHT © 2006 ANTARA
PubDate: 05/02/06 14:12
