The Projects
After a selective process of technical and commercial due diligence the outcome of the Pyrolysis Challenge is that the following projects have received Carbon Trust funding:
A consortium which includes Catal International Ltd and CARE Ltd and aims to develop a novel process to produce up-graded pyrolysis oils from waste biomass such as municipal and wood waste, which can be blended with diesel at the point of distribution. We are investing £7 million over 3-4 years into the consortium which contains complementary technical capabilities spanning the complete pyrolysis-to-fuel supply chain.
There are concerns with existing biofuels related to competition for arable land, which can lead to adverse impacts on food prices and overall carbon savings due to associated land use changes. A key advantage of developing a process which will use existing organic waste rather than plant crops is that it avoids many of these issues, and can lead to even greater carbon savings by avoiding methane emissions from landfill.
Our analysis shows that the carbon footprint of this new pyrolysis biofuel could potentially achieve a carbon saving of 95% when compared to fossil fuels and offer the lowest cost production route of any next 2nd generation biofuel technology (between £0.30 and £0.48 per litre of diesel biofuel). This carbon saving is significantly higher that some existing biofuels, which also do not currently factor in the impacts of land use change when calculating the carbon saving. For more information, please e-mail us.
The University of York has been awarded a £500,000 research grant to conduct earlier-stage R&D on a proprietary low temperature microwave process to make and upgrade pyrolysis oils. This offers greater energy efficiencies and could also produce very high quality oil which could lead to pure biofuel being used in cars. For more information, please e-mail
Mark Gronnow at the University of York.