UK group to explore biomass options
18 Jan 2010
London – The North East Process Industry Cluster (NEPIC) is leading a new sustainable resources project group, made up of leading industrial companies in the UK plus research academics from Surrey, Teesside and Newcastle Universities. The aim of this 30 month project is to identify new commercial opportunities for full-scale chemicals manufacturing from a range of alternative sustainable biomass resources, such as feedstocks.
The project, named ABC (Assessing Biomass to Chemicals), is being partly sponsored by DEFRA and also has support from a range of interested industrial parties as well as Scott Bader, namely AkzoNobel, Growhow, Jacobs Engineering, Graphite Resources and Link2Energy. The intended project outcome will be to produce estimated capital and operating costs for the best and most technically feasible processing options.
Scott Bader, who’s R & D team has been working for over two years on a number of green projects to develop alternative composites resins from renewable resources, sees the NEPIC project as an ideal way to collaborate with other companies and academics also committed to discovering sustainable, environmentally friendly alternatives for chemical products.
“Over the next 30 months the R & D team will work closely with members of the Group to share ideas and expertise,” explained Roy Phillips, technical director for Scott Bader. “This is a significant commitment of our R & D resources, which Scott Bader believes it must do in order to find viable renewable options within the chemical industry for the future.”
