To produce clean electrical energy for use in its own company, feed some of it into the mains network and produce heat: this is the function of TurboMASS, an innovative “turnkey” cogeneration plant operating with a biomass-fuelled turbine to produce electrical energy and recover thermal energy. The plant, designed and produced by Sib Siber, is composed of a small-dimension gas turbine connected to a system of heat exchangers that form an open Brayton cycle, with regeneration, that can use air as process fluid. The turbine’s driveshaft, connected to a generator, converts the mechanical motion into electrical energy.

The use of biomass for fuel contributes to reducing CO₂ emissions into the environment because the CO₂ produced by the combustion is equal to that absorbed by the plants during their life cycle. The environmental and economic advantages are greater the “closer” the biomass is to the combustion plant, because costs and transport pollution are reduced. What once was waste can therefore be transformed into a resource. TurboMASS can use practically any kind of vegetable or animal biomass as fuel, as long as it is in a form compatible with automatic means of transport such as worm screws, conveyor belts, pneumatic systems and so forth. The nature of the biomass and its chemical and physical characteristics (residual humidity, calorific value) determine the type of combustion system and can influence the efficiency of the plant. For example, wood that has been ground and reduced to chips can be used as fuel, as can dried poultry droppings, pressed sawdust, dung from horse, cattle or pig farming, olive residues from the skins, pulp and seed fragments remaining after the olive oil extraction process, maize and cereals.

Siber, founded in 1950, began in the old city centre of Bologna as a gas combustion system company. In 1982 Sib Siber s.r.l. was established and production was transferred to the nearby Ponterivabella works. The brand is present in many industrial sectors and is a leader in the brick and ceramics industry, with special direct-fired burners, a new type of combustion system. In 1992 Teresa Menarini, daughter of the president of Menarini spa, an established bus manufacturing company, joined the company. Sib Siber, in keeping with its own interest in research and innovation, then turned its attention to the new environmental problems of controlling atmospheric emissions and began construction of thermal oxidisation systems. In 1996 the new production unit opened in Castel Maggiore, where work continued on burners and post-combustion systems for flue gases with energy recovery. Sib Siber opened a new direction in the renewable sources sector, through its design and construction of plants for producing electrical and thermal energy, also including energy recovery operations. Hydroelectric production plants and heat recovery plants for generating electrical energy were created. Sib Siber completed its range of products in the combustion sector with the acquisition of Caloreco, a company specialised in the construction of industrial biomass boilers.