Technological watch

Vow ASA: Builds large scale pyrolysis reactor to meet increased demand for advanced carbon products and CO2 neutral energy

Large and increasing demand from industry to decarbonise, recycle carbon, and to secure access to reliable and locally produced CO2 neutral energy, has motivated cleantech provider Vow ASA (“Vow” or the “Company”) to start building a large scale pyrolysis reactor for production of biocarbon and syngas.

The reactor will be built and delivered by the end of 2022 by C.H. Evensen Industriovner (“Evensen”), the recently acquired company, and now a wholly owned subsidiary in the Vow group.

“The Evensen reactor is a combined reactor, in the sense that the energy required to fuel and run the process comes either from the feedstock itself or from electricity. It is based on technology that we have supplied before, but not at this scale,” said Henrik Wulff, managing director of C.H. Evensen.

Global trends, strong demand“Global trends in the circular economy and energy markets, regulation, and economic realities, encourage industry and energy providers to decarbonise. This creates an unprecedented demand and interest for the technologies and solutions that we provide, producing renewable carbon and climate neutral gas at large scale,” said Henrik Badin, CEO of Vow.

Recent examples of such interest include the letter of intent with an undisclosed global producer of non-ferrous metals for renewable carbon, and the news that GRTgaz, Europe’s second largest gas distributor, is considering replacing fossil natural gas with methanised syngas in its gas grid.

“We are building the reactor on spec, but we are confident that we will have found a buyer by the time it is delivered,” Badin said.

The new large-scale Evensen reactor will produce yearly up to 100 GWh of syngas and 10 000 tonnes of Biocarbon in an application based on forestry residues. This amount of biocarbon enables a possibility to capture up to 30 000 tons of CO2 which otherwise would have been released to the atmosphere.

Complementary technologies“With the recent acquisition of Evensen, Vow will in effect have three complementary pyrolysis technologies on offer. They can be used separately or in combination, depending on available feedstock and desired product. With the addition of the Evensen reactor to our toolbox, we are also able to offer industrial plants with a much higher capacity than before. This was in fact one key reason for our decision to acquire C.H. Evensen in the first place”, explained Mr Badin.

Stand-alone, the Evensen reactor is ideal for processing large volumes of biomass, such as forestry waste and waste wood, and production of clean energy and biochar, which for instance can be used for soil improvement. In terms of capacity for certain industry applications, one Evensen reactor can replace five to six Biogreen process lines.

The Biogreen solution from Vow subsidiary Etia can be finely tuned to produce the most sophisticated and advanced biocarbon, needed for instance by the metallurgical and advanced materials industries. This technology is currently being delivered to Vow Green Metals’ BioCarbon plant at Follum in Norway.

For processing of organic waste and production of clean energy, for instance on board a cruise ship, the Scanship MAP (microwave assisted pyrolysis) technology is well suited. The first such system is being installed on a cruise ship this spring, by Scanship, also a Vow subsidiary.

“The beauty of our enhanced toolbox is that technology selection and process configuration can be adjusted to match different feedstock and the desired quality and specification of the products. Feedstock could for instance be forestry waste, waste wood, other types of biogenic material, sewage sludge, and even plastics and polymers. For production of larger volumes of advanced biocarbon, we are currently designing a two-step process with several Biogreen units connected to each Evensen reactor. This would further multiply output from our systems,” said Mr Badin.

Vow and C.H. Evensen joining forces to decarbonise industries and secure access to carbon neutral energy:

ContactsHenrik Badin, CEO, Vow ASA
Tel: + 47 90 78 98 25
Email: henrik.badin@vowasa.com

Erik Magelssen, CFO, Vow ASA
Tel: +47 928 88 728
Email: erik.magelssen@vowasa.com

About VowVow and its subsidiaries Scanship, Etia and C.H. Evensen are passionate about preventing pollution. The company’s world leading solutions convert biomass and waste into valuable resources and generate clean energy for a wide range of industries.

Cruise ships on every ocean have Vow technology inside which processes waste and purifies wastewater. Fish farmers are adopting similar solutions, and public utilities and industries use our solutions for sludge processing, waste management and biogas production on land.

With advanced technologies and solutions, Vow turns waste, biomass, plastics and polymers into recycled advanced carbon materials, low carbon fuels, chemicals, and climate neutral gas for industries to reduce their dependence on fossil energy and petroleum products.

The solutions are scalable, standardised, patented, and thoroughly documented, and the company’s capability to deliver is well proven. They are key to end waste and stop pollution.

Located in Oslo, the parent company Vow ASA is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange (ticker VOW).

Publication date: 11/04/2022

Author: Marion Kupfer

Bio-based News

This project has been co-funded with the support of the LIFE financial instrument of the European Union [LIFE17 ENV/ES/000438] Life programme

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Last update: 2022-01-31