The road into Pace Construction Company’s asphalt plant in Antonia leads through a man-made canyon that emerges into a breathtaking quarry.  Snow paints patches of the rocky landscape.  Cliffs dwarf enormous yellow dump trucks and heavy equipment, which in turn dwarf SUV’s and people. Future generations might someday treat this place like a natural wonder.  Monday Feb 15, US Rep. Russ Carnahan toured the Antonia plant.  Pace employees and representatives from Innoventor, Inc. spoke with the congressman about their progress developing a new type of asphalt binder that recycles swine manure.  

     Innoventor’s COO/CFO, Dan Fitter and Applied Technology Manager, Rick Lux expect that their Swine Manure to Bio-Oil project will help resolve environmental and economic problems in agriculture and asphalt, but the new technology still faces a few challenges.  The process takes a great deal of energy, currently all electric, to achieve sufficient pressure and temperature for the conversion.  In addition, each new product must pass a battery of expensive lab tests.  With nine years already invested, the company must now wait for a break in the weather to lay their first test strip on a stretch of road near Six Flags.  If swine manure asphalt weathers freezing, thawing and heavy traffic comparably to petroleum-based asphalt, it will be one of several useful products Fitter and Lux hope to create from manure.

     Swine Manure to Bio-Oil is Innoventor’s second project that aims to remove hog farm odors.  The company developed and patented an air scrubber for hog confinement buildings in 1998.  Afterwards they began their efforts to clean up the other odor-causing portion of a hog farm, the lagoon.  Their search led them to an agricultural engineering professor researching ways to turn hog manure into a value-added product.  Innoventor licensed the technology and spent several years scaling it up for commercial applications. 

     Lux met Rep. Carnahan through contacts he made at a green energy conference.  After visiting the farm where Innoventor housed its Swine Manure to Bio-Oil project two years ago, the congressman championed the technology on a federal level. 

     “He has been instrumental in increasing the awareness of this project through his involvement on the Transportation Committee and his agricultural contacts,” Lux said.

     “It really struck me as one of those potential game-changing technologies,” Congressman Carnahan said.  “It turns a huge waste issue into a solution that addresses other issues.”

     In 2008 while in discussions with MoDOT, Lux asked about paving companies that could help prove their technology.

     “Pace came highly recommended as a progressive company in this industry,” Lux said.

     Pace Construction Company’s Antonia Plant VP Operations-Materials, Mark Zaiontz thinks Swine Manure Asphalt will work well with other recycled materials the plant currently uses in asphalt.  Asphalt pavement, made from crushed rock and asphalt binder, typically has a lifespan of about fifteen years.  “Perpetual Pavements” structured with the entire depth of 12 to 15 inches made from hot mix asphalt can last much longer so that only the surface is milled off every 15 years.  Zaiontz explained that the structure beneath such roads remains flexible enough to avoid failure from big cracks. 

      “Most of the Interstates we drive on are originally Portland Cement Concrete, overlaid with Hot Mix Asphalt as they start to age and fail.  The problem is the old Concrete cracks and moves, the cracks reflect up to the surface,” he added.

     Asphalt binder, traditionally a petroleum product with polymers added, has a “Performance Grading” or “PG.”  The PG refers to a temperature range in Celsius degrees so that asphalt with a PG of 64-22 should withstand high temperatures of 64 C (147 F), and cold to -22 C (-8 F).  Asphalts with higher PG ratings are harder, whereas those with lower ratings are softer. 

     According to Zaiontz, Pace began adding recycled materials to their hot mix asphalt about 11 years ago when they purchased a facility with the capability.  Recycled Asphalt Pavement (RAP) and roofing shingles, oxidize and harden while weathering freeze-and-thaw cycles. 

     At the Antonia Facility, plant operators grind these so they resemble coarsely ground coffee and add them to pre-heated asphalt binder.  MoDOT currently allows up to 18 percent RAP and two percent shingles in hot mix asphalt made with 64-22 asphalt binder.  The harder recycled materials blend with the softer, more flexible new binder to meet Missouri’s road standards. 

     “Were you guys kind of inventing the wheel here or did you learn from other places that were doing this?” Congressman Carnahan asked.  “How did you figure it out?”

     “I think we’re some of the first in St. Louis to tackle this kind of thing,” Plant Operator, Jamie Althoff said.  “On the east coast, they’ve been doing it quite a bit.”

     Plant Operator, Orville Althoff (Jamie Althoff’s father) said that he sought advice from East Coast operators where the roads are older.

     “They’ve been doing it for a long time over there because they’ve run out of material,” Orville Althoff said.  “Now you’re talking guys on the west coast, and they’re just starting this because their supplies are still pretty good out there.”

     Zaiontz takes pride in the plant, its efficiency, and Pace’s recycling efforts.  The plant heats its materials with reclaimed motor oil in a clean-burning system.  He explained that a “bag house” attached to one of the conveyors suctions exhaust products, collects its dust to add back into the asphalt mix, and releases clean air.  The pristine plant seems to support his claims.  He hopes Innoventor’s Swine Manure Asphalt will broaden recycling opportunities.

     “As other areas of the country use more recycle, we feel that we should also,” Zaiontz said.

     Innoventor’s swine manure asphalt is softer than the standard refinery asphalt binders.  Zaiontz believes softness is one of its best qualities.  MoDOT would allow Pace to include more than 18 percent RAP and two percent shingles, if they combined it with a softer asphalt binder than what is locally available from refineries.

     “A PG 58-22 Asphalt would be a good choice with higher percentages of recycle,” Zaiontz said.  “Local availability is determined by the oil Company (of PG 58-22 for example) but is probably based on very low current demand for such a product.”

     The initial test strip that will be placed in front of Six Flags will have only five percent swine manure asphalt mixed with refinery asphalt binder, but Lux sees potential for higher content in the future, between 15 and 20 percent, he said. 

     “If it works in asphalt and the state approves of it, we can probably use everything you can make,” Orville Althoff said.

     Lux and Fitter explained problems hog farmers face as their operations grow.  Fitter said that hog manure is the number one non-industrial waste issue in America.  While nutrients in manure can benefit fields, too much can lead to excessive phosphorus in the soil.

     “I know this farmer where we’ve got the unit out there, he would like to expand his herd, but he can’t because all his manure goes on his field now,” Lux said.  “If he expands his herd, he’s got manure that he doesn’t know how to deal with it.”

     “This could change the footprint of hog farming,” Fitter said.  “We really believe that.” 

     Innoventor’s system heats and applies pressure to swine manure which has been ground to millimeter sized particles.   During the cooling process, what comes out of the stream is separated into oil and black water.

     “It’s what the Earth does to waste that creates oil, we do in an hour,” Fitter said.

     Innoventor is working on ways to use the black water as well.   Its dissolved solids contain the three major nutrients found in fertilizer.  Fitter and Lux plan, with existing reverse osmosis technology, to extract the water for pond usage and they hope to achieve enough purity for farm animals to drink it.  In addition, they have begun testing fertilizer coating applications that prevent dusting and caking, with the nutrient-rich solids. 

     “Well the big difference between this and what they use now is it’s got nutrients in it, our material, and no other coating has that,” Lux said.  “They’ll be able to use less fertilizer because our coating has fertilizer.  It has the nitrogen, the phosphorus, the potassium which are the big three, called NPK.” 

     Lux also hopes to eventually reduce or eliminate Innoventor’s reliance on electricity to run the unit.

     “I guess you’ve heard of methane digesters?” he said.  “Maybe this is a process that might work with ours.  If you have our process right next to a methane digester, you can use the methane to power our unit and take the manure to produce the oil, because our biggest operating expense is the energy to get that thing at 300 degrees C and 2,000 psi to turn it into oil.  So that’s one of the other pieces that we just kind of started looking at as well.  Like Dan said, it’s an overall process that we have to look at all the little components to make sure it’s almost approaching that zero emissions at the property line where you’re taking care of the water, taking care of the manure, it becomes the oil, and cleaning up the odor from the building.”

     When Fitter and Lux offered to bring their sample into the operations booth, everyone was interested in how the product would smell.

     “We don’t have to sniff it do we?” Carnahan asked.

     “You don’t have to, if you don’t want to,” Lux said.

     Everyone laughed. 

     When Lux and Fitter returned and opened the small cardboard barrel, its aroma resembled slightly burnt dark-roast coffee, perhaps with a hint of cigar.  While it might be less than appetizing at the dinner table, it wasn’t especially offensive or overwhelming either, even in a small, enclosed space.

     “That is a strong coffee smell,” Carnahan said.

     “This smell against asphalt isn’t much different,” Orville Althoff said.  “Asphalt doesn’t smell too good either.” 

     “That’s one of the other projects we want to work on, too,” Lux said.  “We’ve got four or five companies that we’ve talked to about not just masking the odor but absorbing it.”

     Carnahan asked Fitter about jobs the technology would create.  Fitter said that the answer was complex.

     “The system has many, many subsystems, including a reactor, it’s got a complex pump, it’s got a lot of electrical, electronics, it’s got hydraulics,” Fitter said.  “So all of those pieces together, probably about 200 jobs at peak production.”

     Fitter envisions the technology becoming like a utility for farmers.  He sees Innoventor producing three million tons of material annually within ten years, a goal which would require 800 or 900 systems. 

     “Hot water heaters came from big old things to what they are today,” Fitter said.  “I think as we get smarter, this is something you can plug on the side of a building hopefully and maybe a small owner could put manure in and on the outside, on the other end, they get something they can use for energy and it has economic value.  To me that would help the real small farmer.” 

     “We’re designing the third generation,” Lux said to Carnahan.  “I think when you were out there, it was first generation where we produced quarts, a gallon or two, and now we produce a couple hundred pounds.  This one we want to be able to produce, pretty much flip a switch, and produce hundreds of pounds.”

     Lux said that initially they would build their units to serve farms with about 2,500 head, based on information they received from Missouri’s Department of Natural Resources. 

     “Our focus is 100 percent on getting out of the science project,” Fitter said.  “We’re close to finishing that aspect of it, and getting it into production.  It has been a nine year journey.  Four years of collaboration and five years of learning and implementing and developing our system and integrating it and now we’re really close, really close.” 

     Fitter said that he looks forward to paving a road with Pace Construction in March.

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