Circular Energy and Advanced Fuels

The practice overcomes the commercial challenges of turning waste to resource, encouraging a circular economy and defossilising fuels. 

We focus on a twin sustainability challenge: defossilising fuel sources/energy production; shifting to zero waste as part of a circular economy.

Whereas there are solutions to produce carbon-neutral electricity, both heat for industrial applications and hydrocarbon fuels are more challenging economically and technically to clean up.  Whilst some parts of society are more conscientiously reducing waste, as the global population continues to grow, our need for novel waste treatment solutions grows in proportion. How can we move on from burning or burying waste in a linear economy?

In parallel with (not instead of) reducing and recycling waste, technologies must be pioneered to reduce the carbon footprint up and down industrial value chains, to provide clean and affordable fuels (e.g. in the developing world), to improve air quality and life expectancy in industrial zones, and to increase the value of waste. This practice’s expertise touches wherever energy is required and waste is produced.

Producing fuels, processing waste, generating energy – there are considerable technical and regulatory obstacles to overcome in this space. Moreover with a market this broad, the application prioritisation, end-user identification, and value chain characterisation all need rigorous research, validation, and engagement management to ensure the maximum chance of success.

We work with a variety of technologies in this space, including but not limited to:

• Advanced thermo-chemical conversion of municipal waste into hydrogen and other advanced fuels.

• Containerised gasification producing micro-scale energy from onsite, low-grade waste biomass.

• Small-scale, feedstock-agnostic renewable heat generation for heat-intensive manufacturing processes.

• A novel micro-groove technology with PV and energy storage applications for e.g. IoT.