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	The “ Zero-Option ” is the goal of reducing as close as possible to Zero, all the emissions to the Environment from our waste treatment operations.

Zero-option
Zero-option Diagram
Zero-option The Facts
Flue Gas Cleaning
Vitrification
Mineralisation
Synthetic Obsidian
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Rock types
Minerals

	Synthetic Obsidian
			Obsidian is a volcanic glass that is produced in Nature when lava cools down quickly for example when coming into contact with water. As a result of the fast cooling, no crystallisation can occur resulting in a glassy structure. Obsidian occurs naturally in Mexico, Iceland, the US and the Sudan.

			Obsidian is found in many different varieties. The colour can range from dark green, dark brown to black. When white cristobalite crystals are are enclosed, the obsidian is called “Snowflake Obsidian”. Small naturally polished obsidian pieces are called “Apache tears” Obsidian is a hard and dense material, consisting mainly of silicium dioxide (SiO2) and a large number of impurities.

	Click here to view Leaching report		Synthetic Obsidian is produced in a vitrification furnace. Ashes produced by the mineralisation of a variety of chemical wastes, are melted at a temperature of 1500 degrees Celcius. At this temperature, chemical processes occur and three stable phases are produced, a metallic phase, a non-metallic and a gaseous one. When the non-metallic phase is removed from the furnace and allowed to cool rapidly, Synthetic Obsidian is formed. How nature does it Nature has been carrying out waste disposal for billions of years. Nature cleans pollutants that are mobile from the air and earth with the help of water from rainfall : “flue-gas cleaning”. Hereby, gasses are washed and particulates & soluble salts (i.e. metal compounds) migrate over time towards rivers and ultimately the sea. Along the way, biological processes continually create and break down organic components.

			At sea, the sediments and pollutants carried by rivers will ultimately sink to the sea bed "physico-chemical treatments”) which is carried along by tectonic movement to a subduction zone. Here one tectonic plate submerges under another and enters Earth's interior, the “smelter”. In the “smelter” the process of chemical differentiation takes place at high temperatures and pressures, separating stable chemical groups of gasses, metals and minerals : “vitrification”.

			Organic and volatile component are converted into gasses and vented back to atmosphere, for example during a volcanic eruption. Metals are heavy and sink into Earth's metallic core. The remaining minerals make up Earth's mantle.

			Periodically, minerals are returned to the surface in volcanic eruptions producing either basalt type rock or volcanic glass, Obsidian. These deposited minerals are eroded by the weather over millions of years, releasing their constituents. In specific locations where conditions are right, new deposits and ores are formed which mankind uses to make new complex products and waste. The disposal cycle can start again. Nature's zero-option process takes hundreds of millions of years to complete. In Edelchemie's Zero-Option, we have only speeded up time.......