Dangerous tar and asbestos turned into harmless powder and profitable patent

Businesses worldwide based on Milli Španović’s patents are worth millions of euros, but the value of preserved nature cannot have a monetary equivalent. However, Španović emphasizes that in Croatia his proposals are being swept under the rug

written by Mladen Volarić

The success of internationally recognized and applied patents of Zagreb innovator Milli Španović and the company Eko-tehning, along with their simultaneous marginalization in the domestic market, seems to confirm the old proverb that no one is a prophet in their own village. Eko-tehning, co-owned by Milli Španović, Ratko Aralice, Milan Kostelac, and Krešimir Bene, is mostly known to the Croatian public for its legal dispute with the Ministry of Environmental Protection related to a project interrupted by a fire at the PUTO incinerator. However, it has been on the reference list for seven years in the Department of Scientific Research of the Spanish corporation Here, which has already invested five million euros in Eko-tehning’s work. The focus of Eko-tehning’s participation is the processing of hazardous waste types from landfills and entire municipal waste landfills. This collaboration came about after Eko-tehning’s offers worldwide through partners who utilize Eko-tehning’s technology and Španović’s patents in Italy, France, and Poland.

Spanish experiences
– Tar is what remains after extracting everything usable from oil, and all over the world, refineries have ruthlessly disposed of it in nature for decades. As early as 1982, I began research to process very dangerous, aggressive, and toxic tar into a harmless substance, and success came after three unsuccessful attempts. Through a complex chemical-physical reaction and a process that I patented, a solidified, harmless powder is created from extremely dangerous tar. I filed the patent in 1986, but I waited until 1991 for the patent confirmation. The process of the Paris Convention had to be respected to verify that there was no such registered patent anywhere, so the patent is recognized and known worldwide under the name MID-MIX, says Španović.

The success of tar processing in Corsica was noted by Hera, which invited Eko-tehning to Barcelona primarily for the solidification of sludge at the end of the process in sophisticated wastewater treatment plants. In Barcelona, Španović’s patent has been applied since spring 2007, where 100 tons of sludge are processed into solidification daily. Only the financial crisis that hit Spain slowed down the tender for similar treatment plants in eight other large Spanish cities, where the processing capacity will be around 200 tons of sludge per day. The sludge in Barcelona is converted into solidification, which is then utilized by a cement plant located about 20 km away to improve calcium-deficient clay in cement production.

Neutralization of radioactivity
The solidification resulting from the processing of waste sludges, as well as other hazardous substances such as tar or asbestos, is a very interesting field of scientific research, and the results of some observations open entirely new, almost revolutionary possibilities for the safe use of solidification resulting from hazardous waste.
– Our latest findings and research have shown that if the sludge from which the solidification is obtained contains heavy metals, it has the extraordinary property of significantly reducing radioactive radiation, which we have already patented. If there is enough lead, zinc, and iron in the sludge, it has been shown that a 10-centimeter thick layer is already quite sufficient for serious protection. In a double-walled container with a 10-centimeter gap, we filled that space between the walls with solidification, and there was radioactive material in the container, completely preventing alpha radiation, while beta radiation was reduced by 30-40 percent, explains Španović.
The application of this extraordinary method of neutralizing radioactivity of low and medium radioactive substances and waste, he says, can range from increasing safety in institutes to solving the storage of low and medium radioactive waste from nuclear power plants.
– We have developed a procedure and provided it to the Institute for Radioactivity in Barcelona to examine all parameters. This method of protection would indeed be cheap because you would only pay for the double-walled container, and the solidification used to fill that space has already been made, so there are no other costs except for transport, says Španović.

Uninteresting to Croatia
In Hera’s technology park in Barcelona, the utilization of gas from municipal waste for the production of gaseous and liquid fuel similar to diesel has been exceptionally developed. It is already known that the process of utilizing methane reduces landfill volume by about 30 percent. However, in Hera, Španović’s method addresses leachate landfill waters so that pure water is extracted from leachate through osmosis, leaving a thick liquid in which only chemically bound molecular water remains. This is a concentrate of chlorine, ammonia, and many troublesome compounds that are successfully converted into solidification, which covers the landfill in a layer of at least half a meter. There, in anaerobic conditions, the fermentation of the trapped waste continues, resulting in a new type of gas. This gas mixture is much richer than gas with a majority methane content. Of course, this gas is not usable in its original form, but through purification and pyrolysis, it is separated into two parts due to different energy values and properties. One part is used as gaseous fuel and also goes to a gas generator for combustion. Then the technology patented by German expert Christian Koch under the name Alphakat comes into play.
In his facility, gas is synthesized using a special catalyst, which is then condensed into diesel fuel. This fuel obtained from waste is already used for buses and trucks, and the volume of municipal waste landfills has been reduced by 70 percent. The remaining material is energy-exhausted and almost inert waste. No rain can wash anything dangerous from it anymore because internal reactions have ceased. Finally, it can be covered with a layer of soil and planted with herbs with a clear conscience. The turning point in all of this was the application of Španović’s solidification technology, which, in addition to the cost-effectiveness of the business, provided a brilliant and long-term ecological component.