Middlesbrough centre will aid work in thermal technologies

The Middlesbrough-based centre is a collaboration between the existing Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) and Tata Steel.

Ultimately it will be equipped to deal with a variety of feedstocks to produce a range of different fuels and products, as well as reclaiming metals and materials.

‘The first point is we cover five main sectors — process industries, construction and materials, metals, energy, and waste and reclamation,’ said Dr Keith Robson, commercial manager at the new centre.

‘By essentially having pilot equipment available on a rent basis it means people can de-risk their process and product development and, in many cases, save capital expenditure on a pilot plant.’

Currently, the centre houses, among other things, a 3.6m-high, 2,000ºC gasifier, which can take up to 500kg/hr of biomass, as well as end-of-life plastics, and unusable oils to create low-carbon fuels. It also has a smaller-scale laboratory and analytical facilities.

‘Let’s say that somebody has developed a new process or product and they have done that at an academic lab at maybe with 500g, we can take that to a kilo with both gasification and pyrolyssis, then we can take that to the demo scale which is on the Tata site,’ Dr Robson said.