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Large scale anaerobic digestor for landfill waste linked to commercial glasshouse CHP
Project Lead: Hennock Industries Ltd
Total Project Costs: £376k
The objective is to take to commercial prototype an anaerobic digestion facility on a 1.5 hectare tomato greenhouse site. This will process organic (food processors) landfill waste and produce biogas for fuelling an exisitng 0.6MW(e) micro-gas turbine CHP installation. It will involve 3 elements. (1) Construction, comprising reception tank, multiple cell digestor with associated fluid transfer and gas storage / cleaning / monitoring equipment. This will be developing further the work undertaken at the AMEC site at Wirral.
(2) Monitoring and alterations to turbine combustor. Exhaust gas quality from the CHP units is critical, and will be monitored and variations made to combustion chambers on turbines to ensure suitability for aiding plant growth (NOx and ethelene principally). This willl develop further the work undertaken by NuEnCo on landfill gas fuelling of turbines.
(3) Development of operational and management protocols and controls.
Sustainable Plastics to Olefins Recycling Technology (SPORT)
Project Lead: Innovene (part of the BP group and formerly BP Chemicals Ltd)
Total Project Costs: £1.3m
The key to unlocking the latent value in the whole feedstock recycling value chain from waste plastics through to new plastics is the contamination removal / product separations step. This is the key missing link requiring innovative technology solutions today in order to successfully integrate plastics recycling with virgin polymer manufacture in a sustainable way. Consequently, the DTI-supported work will be focussed on the discovery and application of reliable, economic and innovative ways to purify the cracked product from waste plastics, and separate the high-value petrochemicals. This high-value enabling technology could then be applied to commercial third-party plastics-cracking processes. The technical, economic, environmental and social aspects of the whole process, from the waste plastics supply chain through to marketing the recycled products will be evaluated.
Sustainable Scrubbing Medium for Acid Gases, a Feasibility Study
Project Lead: CERAM
Total Project Costs: £171k
A feasibility study to evaluate a novel concept with the potential to address the issue of production and disposal of hazardous waste from essential acid gas scrubbing systems. New legislation has reduced landfill site availability for waste lime scrubbing media by 95% creating the need for an alternative process. The study will assess the feasibility of using an alternative, indigenous material, clay, for recycling within virgin product, to provide a sustainable, closed loop process. This will remove the need for landfill of a hazardous material. The consortium combines raw material supplier, end user, equipment manufacturer, academic analysis and a ceramics technology company. A full scale development project will be proposed on the basis of a successful outcome. Annual industrial benefits are projected at £2M, rising with increase in environmental pressure.
Integrated solution for air pollution control (APC) residues using DC plasma technology
Project Lead: Tetronics Limited
Total Project Costs: £2.3m
This project will develop an integrated solution for managing air pollution control (APC) residues produced from waste incineration. As waste incineration increases in the UK a key issue for the industry is the development of more sustainable methods for managing APC residues. These are produced from cleaning gaseous emissions produced during combustion and are currently transported significant distances to high cost hazardous waste landfills that have limited disposal capacity. Alternative sustainable treatment methods are urgently required. This project aims to develop a new, commercially viable, integrated sustainable technology for treating APC residues that has minimal environmental impact and transforms the bulk of the APC residues into a useful resource using DC plasma technology. This is an advanced thermal conversion technology, that sits intermediately in the waste treatment hierarchy.
Treatment of wastes, slurries and soils with electrokinetic geosynthetics (EKG)
Project Lead: Electrokinetic Ltd
Total Project Costs: £1.4m
Treatment of wastes and slurries by EKG is an emerging innovative platform technology (refer Annex 1). When fully developed, it is anticipated that EKG will offer a unique, robust and far reaching treatment technology for the waste management sector. It is estimated that successful application of EKG technology on a commercial scale could generate a gain to the UK economy, excluding exports, of £555m per annum (refer Annex 2). Investment and resources are required to adapt the technology to the specific technical and commercial demands of a large number of market sectors. Funds are required to : - Assist technical development, laboratory testing, product design, full scale demonstration trials and preparation for market in a broad range of emerging waste market sectors.
- Enable basic research and laboratory testing of further candidate waste materials and new EKG designs and applications.
Advanced Wastewater Treatment Process Plant
Project Lead: EEC EUROPE LTD
Total Project Costs: £370k
Compact wastewater treatment. Land available for disposal of sludge is more scarce. EEC Europe in collaboration with Sheffield University, Yorkshire Water, Veolia Water Systems and Polydon Industries Ltd plan to prove new plant process will reduce amount of sludge produced, in order to minimise the creation of waste for disposal to landfill. The factors taken into consideration for this project include, treatment efficiency, cost, footprint, reduced sludge production and sustainability. Objectives to prove carbon source for denitrification, with sludge reduction, process is cost effective with reduced energy consumption and plant is area-efficient. Innovation? Plant will minimise amount of sludge produced. Resident time is <2 hrs compared with 10-20 hrs for the activated sludge process, plant is easy to operate, low maintenance cost, and final effluent will be reusable.
Recycling Of Polymeric Foam (ROPOF)
Project Lead: RCS Ltd
Total Project Costs: £448k
The project objective is the development of a viable technology for converting waste polymeric foams, such as polyurethane or phenolic foams, into high added value materials for use in fire-resistant high temperature insulating applications.
The technology will provide industry with a route to eliminating a serious waste problem and simultaneously generate profit and create a valuable product stream that out performs any existing material form. This aligns with a number of headings under the general technology call including the minimisation of waste by re-use/recycling, alternatives to landfill and strategic approaches to the management of waste.
Using wastes from the paper recycling process to make composite construction materials
Project Lead: Salvtech Ltd
Total Project Costs: £2.4m
The project objectives are to invent and demonstrate an innovative new process which re- combines the two major waste streams generated from the wastepaper recycling process to make environmentally and economically viable products for use in the construction and packaging industries. The project innovation comes from exploiting the synergistic characteristics of the two reject waste streams to create strong water resistant materials with potential for diverse novel uses. Warwick University will determine the best formulations, additives and extrusion and moulding techniques for processing the waste combinations and will recommend the demonstration equipment. This will be installed at M-Real New Thames Ltd where Salvtech will further develop the products with the assistance of its other collaborators and ensure their technical and commercial viability. Initially the target markets are pallets, partitioning systems and suspended flooring systems.
Reducing Waste Through Integrated Product Design and Manufacture
Project Lead: Building Research Establishment Ltd (BRE)
Total Project Costs: £1.6m
The aim of this project is to reduce waste and resource use across the whole life cycle of any given product. The project objectives relate to researching the viability of modifying product design, manufacture, packaging/distribution, application, maintenance and end of life management to maximise resource efficiency. This integrated approach to considering the whole life cycle of construction products will be enhanced by conducting pan-industrial waste exchange analysis, characterisation, testing and evaluation providing opportunities for knowledge transfer. The project will model scenarios for improving resource use throughout the whole life cycle by re-engineering processes. The project is innovative as it is generating new knowledge and combining research at three levels i.e. product life cycle, pan-industrial waste mapping and integrated product design modelling and simulation.
Recycling of Electric Arc Furnace Dust Using Ionic Liquids
Project Lead: Scionix Ltd
Total Project Costs: £971k
This project aims to neutralise hazardous waste from the steel industry and convert it into useful products. The process will isolate heavy metals, recover useful constituents such as zinc and recycle iron oxide. New ionic liquids will be at the core of this procedure. They are recyclable, environmentally benign and economically viable on a large scale. the partnership of companies will optimise the recovery of metals build a multi-tonne pilot plant and evaluate the process parameters necessary to construct a working plant. The process will eliminate the necessity to dispose of hazardous electric arc furnace dust in landfill sites. The process will be economically profitable because of the reduced landfill costs and the recovery of useful metals.
