Carbon8: Combined carbon capture and waste treatment – A commercial reality

Waste valorisation is essential to ensure future sustainability. However, often technologies are either undeveloped, remain uneconomical, or hindered by legislative barriers. Using technology developed by Carbon8 Systems Ltd, industrial thermal residues can be solidified and stabilised in a hardened pellet form that can be a direct substitute for natural aggregate e.g. for the production of concrete construction blocks. The route to commercialising the technology, which has required demonstrating the transition from hazardous waste feedstock to safe usable product, has been difficult and complex. The aggregates produced were rigorously tested and finally given ‘end-of-waste’ designation by the Environment Agency. In early 2012, a bespoke commercial plant was commissioned at Brandon in Suffolk, UK. In 2014, a second production line was added to the Brandon facility, increasing its capacity to 60,000 tonnes per year. The ACT-produced aggregate is carbon negative as it contains more imbibed carbon than is generated by its production. Consequently, concrete construction blocks produced can also be carbon negative, and are marketed under the name ‘Carbon Buster’. Plans are at an advanced stage for the construction of a second production facility in the UK. This is scheduled to be operational by late 2015