£100 million waste-to-chemicals plant for Teesside
31 Jan 2011
London – A renewable chemical sector entrepreneur has unveiled ambitious plans to develop “the UK’s first manufacturing facility” producing industrial chemicals from domestic and commercial waste, on Teesside.
Solvert Ltd will use advanced biological fermentation processes to produce renewable n-butanol, acetone, hydrogen and electricity from wet biodegradable waste. The process, it said, utilises a feedstock which other new industries such as waste-to-energy plants cannot use effectively.
Led by a team of managers from the UK waste and chemical business sectors, the company has so far secured a funding package worth £200,000 to develop the project.
It includes a £100,000 investment from the Finance for Business North East Proof of Concept (POC) Fund managed by Northstar Ventures, along with grant support from Business Link and the North East Process Industry Cluster (NEPIC).
This will deliver phase 1 of the four-phase business plan with the fund-raising process for phase 2 already underway. The company’s corporate finance advisor is Mark Irving, a director at Irving Ramsay Ltd.
“The current drive within the UK is to divert waste away from landfill sites into, more productive uses – such as feedstocks for other processes,” said Solvert’s CEO Kris Wadrop.
“Organic waste, such as spoilage from supermarkets or the leftover food from our kitchens at home and in restaurants, holds immense potential for conversion into valuable chemicals to replace those produced from crude oil.
“At the moment, hydrogen, acetone and n-butanol come from non-renewable petrochemical sources and there are no UK producers. N-butanol and acetone are currently imported into the UK from Western Europe and the US.
“A significant market for these chemicals already exists in the North East as well as other parts of the UK, and more customers from further afield are also looking for a greener alternative to products derived from crude oil. These products form part of our daily lives as they are used extensively to produce paint or plastics such as Perspex.
“The fact that we are producing them in the UK and reducing imports is also a huge bonus,” added Wadrop – a chemical engineer, who has spent his career designing, building, commissioning and managing chemical plants all over the world.
It was during his time at ICI that he spotted growing opportunities in the renewables sector. Thanks to new legislation, and demand from companies keen to improve their environmental credentials, the business believes that it is the right time for the UK to establish itself as a world-leader in the renewable chemicals market.
Proof of concept funding from Northstar Ventures has enabled Solvert to finance the initial development of the business, with encouraging results already coming from laboratory testing in conjunction with the CPI’s Sustainable Process Centre at Wilton.
Solvert is now looking at four possible sites for the £100 million manufacturing plant including the Impetus Reclamation Site at North Tees, Tata Steel, Wilton and the former ICI site at Billingham.
