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CPI leads bioenergy revolution

A REVOLUTIONARY bioenergy process which is worth £4.5b a year in the UK alone is being developed in the North East.

The Centre for Process Innovation (CPI), based in Teesside, has teamed up with Biosource Ltd to exploit a major advance in the way organic waste and biomass crops are converted into fuel.

Biosource is now said to be targeting the increasingly important and growing market in the UK for Anaerobic Digestion [AD] facilities where organic waste is broken down using a range of micro-organisms and turned into bioenergy.

Professor Mike Theodorou, a microbiology expert, who works on the project, said: “The UK creates around 40 million tonnes of organic waste each year much of which ends up in landfills.

“But with a more sustainable way of life and climate-change high onpolitical and social agendas, the global thrust for new ways of creating fuels from biomass is gathering pace.

“One of the key challenges we faced was how to create a system that converts biomass and produces energy in a continuous rather than batched way.”

“After three years research we have overcome that challenge and believe this is amajor advance.”

The anaerobic process designed by Biosource has been already granted a UK license and has patents pending.

Biosource is a company spun into the Aberystwyth University Campus created by CPI Innovation Services Ltd, the commercial wing of the CPI on Teesside.

Lesley Griffiths, Welsh Assembly government deputy Minister for Science,Innovation and Skills, said: “Energy and environment and Life Sciences are amongst the key sectors for economic growth. Biosource is an excellent example of a business that straddles these sectors.

“New ways of creating bioenergy using renewable resources and anaerobic digestion have the potential to make a considerable impact on the economy aswell as helping to create a more sustainable future.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .