Wellington
In one sense, proving Carbonscape's novel one-step processcan cheaply produce highly porous charcoal was the easy part.
Now the Blenheim-based cleantech company faces the potentially far greater challenge ofnationally and globally commercialising its method of turning biomass such as sawdust into what isknown as activated carbon (AC).
Carbonscape co-founder Nick Gerritsen describes what his team has developed as an "enablingtechnology,", and a part of the push to use waste as a resource.
Carbonscape has recently obtained patents around the novelty of its microwave technology, whichin a continuous flow produces high-grade and highly valuable AC. AC has a huge surface area,typically measuring more than 500m2 per gram.
Its large surface area gives it a range of uses, including cleaning contaminated soil and water,and capturing large amounts of CO2 emissions from power stations.
It is also used in industries such as metallurgy, chemistry, agriculture, timber processing, goldextraction, nuclear energy, pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals, medicine and food processing, and itsdemand is globally growing at a compounded 5% a year.
The method's ability to lock up the greenhouse gas CO2 almost indefinitely was behind itreceiving the Judge's top choice in the 2008Financial Times (UK) Climate Change Challenge.
But wait…..there's more.
There's other methods of producing AC, almost all that employ pyrolysis, which uses the gases andoils given off in the combustion to help drive it.
Carbonscape's method allows the capture of these valuable feedstocks, such as in pine saw orother organic materials, before the conversion into AC.
The microwave technology was the brainchild of British based (but with his parents living in NZ)Prof. Chris Turney.
Carbonscape's two and a half man team developed and tested a prototype microwave machine over thepast couple of years, validating earlier smaller scale trials and pointing the way to largerapparatus.
The 1.5 x 1.5, 30kW power microwave's advantage over typical catalytic pyrolysis ovens is that amuch more precise temperature control can be maintained, and particular volatile products targetedfrom the material being charcoaled.
It is the tight control Carbonscape has over its data set that gives it confidence to produce,promote and look for investors to take it up to a three metre model.
Such an oven could be put in a container and shipped to the organic waste source.
Gerritsen's New Zealand focus has been the huge quantities of forestry waste produced in, firstlythe production of logs, and secondly by sawmills.
It is now estimated that the average dump cost of removing waste from a pine harvest site is$3-$400,000/site.
It is estimated that 13 million tonnes a year of forestry waste is annually produced in NewZealand.
"Image if we're able to deal with that waste, on-site, and be able to mitigate part of thatcost," Gerritsen says. "There would be big ramifications for forestry. The adjunct is you can alsoproduce a stream of bio oils, which are a feedstock of biochemicals and fuels."
As an enabling model, Carbonscape's method can use any biomass waste stream. It can work with thewaste's owner to whatever they want to produce - from biochar to its specific biochemicals.
And, having developed the technology and being confident it can be replicated at larger scales,Gerritsen is open to how it is taken to market.
As a serial entrepreneur, he is well aware of the challenges of attempting to take to the worldstage, technology developed in this country.
With patents in place, and having financed the operation's development through friends and familyand close associations with high net worth individuals in Australia, the UK and Japan, Carbonscape'sspeed of development is definitely "a function of our access to capital," Gerritsen says.
The company's reviewing its various options and has interest from a number of parties hesays.
Gerritsen appreciates the company is approaching the NZ venture capital 'valley of death'scenario - too big for more angel investment, not big enough for the $10m+ investment required bybigger VC investors. (more about this in another sticK post).
As he works on the challenge, Gerritsen says that waving a magic wand, and having access to achunk of capital, then Carbonscape could employ skilled people, create a centre of excellence aroundthe technology and create an intellectual property creation engine.
Carbonscape also wants to work with large corporation to prove its technology in anotherenvironment, and also develop alternative routes to market rather than thinking it has to build andoperate all its technology and machines itself.
"The smartest thing for us to do is create the intellectual property around the technology,"Gerritsen says.
"That puts it in a form that has value, is lighter and is easier to export….rather than tryingto build everything ourselves. It's better to clip the ticket that way, thinking about how we useour dataset and IP."