06-23-2006, 07:52 AM
Ford Rolls Out Fumes-To-Fuel System
Associated Press - June 22, 2006
Ford Motor Co. is preparing to roll out a system to capture toxic paint fumes and convert them into electrical power after testing it at two of its Detroit-area plants. Priming, painting and clear coating millions of new cars and trucks every year creates millions of pounds of waste at plants around the world. The nation's No. 2 automaker is helping to pioneer a way to better deal with the fumes.
"We're very pleased with the results so far," Mark Wherrett, Ford's principal environmental engineer, told the Detroit Free Press for a Sunday story. "It's a pollution-control system that uses less energy than the old system."
Dearborn-based Ford has been working with its suppliers to develop a fumes-to-fuel system that converts the volatile organic compounds given off by paint fumes into fuel that generates power.
The fumes-to-fuel technology was developed in conjunction with DTE Energy Co.
Currently, paint fumes at auto plants are collected and burned in incinerators. Paint overspray is captured, treated and consolidated into nonhazardous sludge that is eventually dumped in landfills.
Ford first tested the system in 2004 at its Rouge industrial complex in Dearborn and showed that the idea could work. Two years later, Ford is wrapping up a pilot program at the Michigan Truck Plant in Wayne.
Ford is preparing to roll out the system at other plants as equipment is updated and replaced, the newspaper said. The company's plant in Oakville, Ontario, which builds the Ford Freestar and Mercury Monterey minivans, is scheduled to install a fumes-to-fuel system early next year.
Associated Press - June 22, 2006
Ford Motor Co. is preparing to roll out a system to capture toxic paint fumes and convert them into electrical power after testing it at two of its Detroit-area plants. Priming, painting and clear coating millions of new cars and trucks every year creates millions of pounds of waste at plants around the world. The nation's No. 2 automaker is helping to pioneer a way to better deal with the fumes.
"We're very pleased with the results so far," Mark Wherrett, Ford's principal environmental engineer, told the Detroit Free Press for a Sunday story. "It's a pollution-control system that uses less energy than the old system."
Dearborn-based Ford has been working with its suppliers to develop a fumes-to-fuel system that converts the volatile organic compounds given off by paint fumes into fuel that generates power.
The fumes-to-fuel technology was developed in conjunction with DTE Energy Co.
Currently, paint fumes at auto plants are collected and burned in incinerators. Paint overspray is captured, treated and consolidated into nonhazardous sludge that is eventually dumped in landfills.
Ford first tested the system in 2004 at its Rouge industrial complex in Dearborn and showed that the idea could work. Two years later, Ford is wrapping up a pilot program at the Michigan Truck Plant in Wayne.
Ford is preparing to roll out the system at other plants as equipment is updated and replaced, the newspaper said. The company's plant in Oakville, Ontario, which builds the Ford Freestar and Mercury Monterey minivans, is scheduled to install a fumes-to-fuel system early next year.