John Whitney - Founder
Address: Columbia, MO 65203
E-mail: info@jpwhitney.net
Tel: 707-704-6878
Professional Info
John Whitney has over 30 years of experience and 16 issued patents in waste management and recycling, with an emphasis on thermal processes. He is considered a leading expert in thermal process applications, gasification, incineration, drying and thermal desorption for waste management. Mr. Whitney has broad core competencies in chemical and mechanical technologies and has been tasked with solving some of the most difficult process design and startup issues for some of the largest waste management companies in the industry.
Services
- Expert Witness
- Technical Support for Legal
- Equipment Design
- Thermal Process Design
- HAZ Ops Review
Experience
Drying / Thermal Desorption
Whitney’s experience includes design, build and operation of rotary kilns, screw processors and the associated peripheral equipment. His experience base covers all aspects of process development, equipment design, specification, application, startup, optimization, repair and rebuild of rotary kilns and screw processors for drying, devolatizing and pyrolizing applications.
Experience with specific feedstocks and processes:
- Drying mechanically dewatered biosolids sludge, including materials that contain FOG, septage and primary sludge that can adhere to the heat exchange surfaces.
- Recycling of drilling fluids by devolatizing drill cuttings to extract the oil from the solids.
- The devolatization of hydrocarbon containing RCRA waste, consisting of the shredded whole stream: shredded drums, small containers, cardboard, plastics, rags, wood, adsorbents and hydrocarbons of all types. The condensing systems substantially separated the lower boiling solvents, water, higher boiling hydrocarbons and oils. Refinements to the system including inerting and controls resulted in a large scale, safe, 90% uptime operation.
- The indirectly heated anaerobic devolatization of soils and refinery wastes for delisting. Non-detect for hydrocarbons has been achieved at discharge temperatures in the 800°F to 950°F range.
- Precipitated minerals cake drying in hydrometallurgy.
- Thermal processing of high purity, inorganic chemicals.
- Indirect and direct drying of agriculture and woody biomass.
Experience with dryer and thermal desorption system peripheral equipment:
- Utility systems for thermal fluid or electric heating
- Feeding and material handling systems
- Cooling systems
- Off take and material handling systems
- Non-condensable gas management
- Inert gas supply and management
- Condenser systems, including automatic in-line cleaning
- Instrumentation and automated control of the complete system
Gasification
Mr. Whitney has consulted on several gasification projects including as owners’ engineer and consulting with Fluor Daniels on various gasification technology projects worldwide. Key projects include a proposed 200 million RCRA waste gasification project in which Whitney is an inventor of the process.
Additional Project Experience:
- Independent Stave Co, Lebanon, MO: Designed, built and commissioned a 9mm Btu/h woody biomass gasifier and a similar gasifier of 25mm Btu/h for another client.
- Producers Rice Mill, Stuttgart, AR: Various equipment designs for ash cooling and stripping, feedstock and product evaluations with industrial scale rice hull gasifiers.