Ever wondered how renewable fuel is made? Or how biodegradable plastics are created?
There’s a lot that happens after you throw something away, and the process of repurposing materials is more complex than you might think.
Clinical stage oncology company PharmAust (ASX: PAA) has an interesting subsidiary involved in just that. Epichem is a leading provider of synthetic and medicinal chemistry services.
Epichem has recently successfully processed e-waste using a new technology as part of the $200,000 WasteSorted e-waste grant from the Western Australian Government New Industries Fund.
The $16.7 million New Industries Fund is designed to boost new and emerging WA businesses to bolster the State’s economy and create job opportunities.
The process of Oxidative Hydrothermal Dissolution (OHD) allows for the recovery of valuable metals and high value chemicals from e-waste. The benchtop device used the process of OHD to principally remove plastics, leaving concentrated major metals such as gold, tin, copper, iron and zinc. Minor metals such as silver, barium, nickel, chromium, magnesium and manganese were also recovered.
Plastics removed were converted into small organic molecules that have the potential to be repurposed or even made biodegradable.
Adding to its appeal, the device is carbon neutral, environmentally sustainable using only oxygen and water at high temperatures and pressures to break down materials.
The promising results have given Epichem renewed motivation to continue developing the OHD technology which is also capable of converting plastics into renewable fuels, or biodegradable products, turning rubber tyres into valuable chemical products and processing leftover stocks, crops and even trees into liquid fuel.
Epichem CEO, Colin La Galia said: “The e-waste project using OHD has delivered promising and encouraging results, We will continue to research and optimise the technology, process different waste streams and enter into commercial agreements with key stakeholders to validate their waste potential.”
This new venture raises questions about their ties to pharmaceutical company PharmAust but Epichem doesn’t just work in waste repurposing. The chemistry company primarily services the drug discovery and pharmaceutical industries by providing cost effective creation of drug analogues. Factor in their experience in chemistry and materials science and their new foray into waste management doesn’t seem so far fetched.
The potential revenue streams from their OHD device are incredibly lucrative with the global waste management market expected to grow to $435 billion by 2023. This is only expected to grow as industries seek to reduce their environmental impact by repurposing their waste products into valuable end user products thereby reducing landfill and financial losses.
Samantha Freidin is a business journalist at Emerald Financial whilst also completing a Masters of Marketing and Digital Communications at Monash University.
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