The anaerobic enrichment of carbon dates back to the traditional technology of charcoaling. Processes like the dry distillation or the pyrolytic gasification were invented already in the 19th century, being employed for the production of town gas and fuel from coal.
With the charring of brown coal, wood or turf and the production of charring tar or charring oil, for the production of liquid carbohydrates, and with medium and high temperature carbonization, for the production of process gas for industrial use, these reductive processes, for treatment and refining of fuel, have been well-known and in use since about 100 years.
Before AGT was founded in 1990, a series of research projects were successfully carried out in Austria to further develop the conversion and processing of a wide range of input materials. The pilot plant was in operation for 12 years, most recently in industrial use in the drying and processing of lignite. From 2008 to 2010, it was operated as a pilot plant on a technical scale for demonstration and research purposes with a completely new process sequence and state-of-the-art process control system for low-temperature conversion.
