Technology
The Carbon Revolution®
What pyrolysis is
Heat without oxygen. Nothing burns.
Pyrolysis is thermal decomposition in the absence of oxygen. Energy-dense waste streams are heated in a sealed reactor with no air present. Without oxygen during conversion, combustion is chemically impossible — NO waste is burned.
Instead the long molecular chains in waste break apart into two streams: a synthetic gas and a solid carbon char.
Synthetic gas is refined into clean fuels and thermal energy — steam. Solid carbon char is recovered for industrial and agricultural applications.
This is not a new or speculative technology. It has been used industrially for decades. What is new is applying diligent conditioning and flexible operations that remove single-source dependence, under bankable long-term offtakes.
“Waste-to-energy” almost always means incineration. This is NOT that. NO waste is burned, NO toxic emissions, and less than 1% residual by weight even though the facility starts with 100% waste.
Incineration versus pyrolysis
The distinction that matters most.
- No burning of waste
- No toxic emissions
- Under 1% residual by weight
- No wasted resources
- No fossil fuels required
- No first-of-a-kind deployment risk
| Incineration | Circon energy facility | |
|---|---|---|
| Process | Combustion with excess air | Pyrolysis — sealed, oxygen-free |
| Carbon | Released as CO₂ in flue gas and ash | Recovered as fuel and solid carbon |
| Primary output | Power only | Fuels, power, commodities, credits |
| Residue | Bottom ash and fly ash to landfill | Recovered carbon black and biocarbon to market |
| Direct process emissions | Stack emissions with complex scrubbing | Low emissions with carbon sequestration |
| Mass to disposal | Ash requiring managed or hazardous disposal | Less than 1% of input mass |
| Lifecycle CO₂e | Positive | Negative |
Process
Incineration
Combustion with excess air
Circon
Pyrolysis — sealed, oxygen-free
Carbon
Incineration
Released as CO₂ in flue gas and ash
Circon
Recovered as fuel and solid carbon
Primary output
Incineration
Power only
Circon
Fuels, power, commodities, credits
Residue
Incineration
Bottom ash and fly ash to landfill
Circon
Recovered carbon black and biocarbon to market
Direct process emissions
Incineration
Stack emissions with complex scrubbing
Circon
Low emissions with carbon sequestration
Mass to disposal
Incineration
Ash requiring managed or hazardous disposal
Circon
Less than 1% of input mass
Lifecycle CO₂e
Incineration
Positive
Circon
Negative
The lifecycle result is assessed under the GHG Protocol — roughly 3 million mT CO₂e per year avoided and removed, on a 200 MW design capacity basis.
The process
Waste in. Power, fuel, and commodities out.
- 01
Feedstock
Municipal organics, waste plastics, end-of-life tires, biomass, storm debris and industrial residues — energy-dense streams diverted from landfills and from the natural environment, secured under long-term sourcing agreements at a contingency scale beyond the facility's requirement.
- 02
Thermal conversion
Modular conversion units break the feedstock down into syngas and solids. Sealed and oxygen-free, NO combustion of waste. Each conversion module can run a dedicated feedstock class in normal operation, but is capable of processing alternate feeds — so a scarce, more expensive or quality-impacted stream can be swapped for another to maintain uptime.
- 03
Clean fuels and steam
Syngas from high-quality feedstocks is converted to liquid fuels, while feedstocks with high oxygen and moisture content are converted to high-pressure, high-temperature steam — BTUs in, BTUs out. This maximizes quality and enhances dual-path power production through any feedstock interruption, maintenance or unplanned disruptions.
- 04
Power and products
Clean fuels and steam drive turbines that produce firm 24/7/365 power to the grid. The solid materials are separated into recovered carbon black, biochar, biocarbon, steel and non-ferrous metals and sold into industrial and agricultural markets.
Emissions and environmental performance
Designed to the standard a lender applies.
Every Circon facility is designed against the IFC Performance Standards and the World Bank Group Environmental, Health and Safety Guidelines — the framework international lenders and development-finance institutions apply at diligence, rather than the local minimum wherever a plant happens to sit.
What that means in practice is decided site by site. Air permit limits, water availability and discharge consent, residue routing, noise and traffic all depend on the jurisdiction, the grid connection and the neighbours. Selective catalytic reduction and best available control technology are specified where the permitting authority and the application call for them.
Air permitting
Limits set by the jurisdiction, with the control technology specified to meet them.
Water use and discharge
Under 30% of the water a comparable combined-cycle plant uses, and what we discharge is measurably cleaner than what we take in.
Emissions control
SCR and BACT applied where the permit standard and the application require it.
Residue handling
Under 1% of input mass, routed to a named destination rather than to landfill by default.
Noise and traffic
Facilities sit where the waste is already being delivered, so the movements are existing ones — and what happens at the end of them is better than what happens today.
Independent review
Technical and environmental review by parties retained by lenders, not by us.
Monitoring and reporting
Environmental and carbon credits require real-time monitoring and monthly reporting — a standard above what industry practice or public disclosure asks for.
Community engagement
Public consultation before permitting rather than after it.
Design standards, permit limits and monitoring commitments for a specific site are available on request — ask us for them.
Proven equipment, proven team
The only part of the business we have refused to make novel.
Circon does not manufacture equipment. Our large-scale energy facilities use mature, commercially proven equipment from established suppliers whose systems are already in service in industrial applications across the globe — waste separation, pyrolysis reactors, power turbines, heat recovery steam generators, and control and digital systems. We specify best-in-class manufacturers with a proven global operating history.
Feedstock characterization and co-product validation are carried out with Texas A&M AgriLife Research, an engagement running since 2019.
This is deliberate. Development-stage energy projects too often struggle when weak execution, unproven technologies and experimental equipment converge — creating unnecessary technical risk, schedule uncertainty and capital exposure.
The challenge is compounded when project economics depend more heavily on subsidies, incentives and policy support than on the underlying commercial fundamentals.
We take a different approach: proven technology, disciplined execution, practical engineering, and project economics designed to stand on their own.
Feedstock
Feedstock-flexible by design.
Different feedstocks yield different co-product mixes, which is what allows each facility to be configured around the waste streams and offtake markets that actually exist in its region.
- Municipal solid waste
- Industrial solid waste
- Waste plastics
- End-of-life tires
- Storm and disaster debris
- Wood waste
- Agricultural biomass
- Organics / Sludge
Securing and characterizing flexible waste streams to ensure facility utilization, flexible operations and contingency supply provisions.
Continuous chemical analytics to anticipate changes in feedstock characteristics and optimize process recipes — there is no such thing as a homogeneous waste feedstock.