Novel biogas facility planned for Plymouth

AeroThermal Group and 4Recycling have submitted plans to Devon County Council for an innovative facility that uses autoclaving and anaerobic digestion on municipal solid waste (MSW) to generate biogas for electricity generation.

‘This system makes more of the material available, things like cardboard and paper can actually be digested having been autoclaved, whereas with other systems without autoclaving, the digestion process would not be able to deal with that material at all,’ said Tony Kimber technical director at AeroThermal Group.

AeroThermal have around thirty years’ experience using autoclaves, mostly for composites in the aerospace, motorsport and process engineering industries. They have worked with several formula one teams as well as Boeing and Airbus on their lightweight planes.

The company decided to diversify its business, citing the long lifespan of carbon composites and lack of repeat orders. They spotted a potential gap in the market that could easily be exploited with their existing technology.