Turning waste into fuel

9:49am Friday 11th July 2008

BIO-waste or flare gas - now burnt off for safety reasons - can be converted on a small scale into synthetic liquid fuels, says an Oxfordshire company Oxford Catalysts, based at Milton Park, near Abingdon, expects to earn £100,000 this year by selling its catalysts to an unnamed partner company which will develop the conversion systems. The potential global market is said to be the equivalent of more than four million barrels of oil per day.

Catalysts are already used industrially, on a large scale, to convert natural gas, coal or bio-mass into clean-burning liquid fuels, such as sulphur-free diesel. However, conventional technologies have been unable to scale down cost-effectively.

The Oxfordshire company says its products can operate at more than 10 times the productivity of conventional catalysts. It needs the technology of its new partner company to deliver small-scale systems which can convert from 500-5,000 barrels of synthetic fuel per day.

The system has been successfully demonstrated for more than 1,000 hours in a one-gallon-a-day pilot unit, says Oxford Catalysts.

Chief executive Roy Lipski said: "We are very excited about the potential for small scale FT applications, which include capturing flare gas, unlocking the vast reserves of medium-sized stranded gas fields, and producing truly sustainable synthetic diesel from organic wastes.

"Global regulation and legislation is driving the need for small-scale systems; we are very well placed to benefit from the inevitable demand."

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