Plasma technology firm to seek 10 million from city

Canadian firm PyroGenesis has produced plasma incinerators since the early nineties and now hopes to enter the UK market in July.

The company is establishing a UK office, and has taken on non-executive directors from UK-based waste firms Veolia Environmental Services and Augean.

”We now look forward to stepping up our production and marketing activities to highlight the benefits of plasma. “
– Peter Pascali, PyroGenesis
PyroGenesis is aiming to raise funds to develop its new technology and take advantage of current environmental and legislative pressures governing waste.

The company also intends to purchase an existing plasma treatment facility it operates in Montreal.

Peter Pascali, PyroGenesis chief executive, said: “We now look forward to stepping up our production and marketing activities to highlight the benefits of plasma to help promote it as an accepted mainstream waste treatment solution.”

Systems
Plasma is an ionised gas and can generate temperatures between 5,000-10,000 degrees Centigrade.

PyroGenesis has built up two main systems to harness this energy, the “Plasma Resource Recovery System”(PRRS) and the Plasma Arc Waste Destruction System (PAWDS).

PRRS is a land-based incinerator which turns organic waste into a clean fuel and inorganic material into a glass-like material. Waste does not require sorting before it is introduced, and the gas can be used to power the system.

PAWDS is a smaller, marine-based incinerator which can rapidly gasify pre-sorted combustible waste in a confined space, under sea-going conditions. It has been developed through continuing contracts with the US Navy and on board Carnival Cruise Line.

Mr Pascali said: “The ability to be able to economically treat waste on a smaller scale is paramount to changing the philosophy of waste management from a centralised approach, requiring transportation to a waste transfer site, to a decentralised approach in which smaller systems safely and economically convert waste to energy.”

Directors
The company's board of directors includes John Kutner, deputy chief executive of Veolia Environmental Services and John Huntington, chief executive of hazardous waste company Augean.

Mr Pascali added: “I am delighted we have secured the services of two very high calibre non-executive directors who, with their long and extensive experience of the waste management market, are expected to make a valuable contribution to the ongoing commercialisation of PyroGenesis technology.”