Cambridge spinoff recycles laminate containers

Archiv – A UK-based company has developed a recycling technique to extract high-quality metals, oils and gases from plastic and aluminium laminate containers. Enval LLC a spinoff company from Cambridge University has raised Series A funding to help it advance to an industrial level service. United Kingdom | A UK-based company has developed a recycling technique to extract high-quality metals, oils and gases from plastic and aluminium laminate containers. Enval LLC a spinoff company from Cambridge University has raised Series A funding to help it advance to an industrial level service.
The technique of Envalis able to produce ’clean’ aluminium ‘€’ more than 95% pure ‘€’ which is ready for sale, as well as gases and oils that have a number of uses including fuel and chemical feedstock. The company says its unique proprietary technology is the first to allow complete recycling of laminate waste packaging in an environmentally and financially compelling way, avoiding the need for many thousands of tonnes of landfill.
It now has two blue chip companies signed on to run recycling pilot programmes and is looking for new premises where it can scale up its activities. Enval’€™s recycling process enables recycling of several different types of packaging, but its strength resides in the recycling of packaging materials containing plastic-aluminium laminates often used in drinks cartons, toothpaste tubes and coffee pouches. Company founder, Dr Carlos Ludlow-Palafox, says: ‘€˜This is an international product because the packages we recycle sit on every shelf of every supermarket of every country in the world.’€™
Enval is using the funding to expand business development and technical capabilities. It is also expected to move into new premises in the London Luton area, where Dr Ludlow-Palafox says there is a greater range of the kind of industrial units Enval will require to grow. He says: ‘€™The idea is to bring more commercial traction and optimise the pilot plant. We hope that in 18 months we’€™ll be at the next stage, by which time we should have pre-production prototype ready somewhere, though not necessarily here.’€™
At the moment Enval is talking to a number of potential partners, but has now settled on whether it will be selling machines, licensing the IP or handling the waste. The focus for now is the aluminium which can be resold and Enval is concentrating on several different types of the packages including pet food, toothpaste, soups and drinks.
Enval was spun out of the University of Cambridge four years ago and has spent the last two years advancing the technology and raising the money, which took considerably longer than planned. ‘€˜It’€™s a very new technology and we had to find the right balance between how much testing we undertook while the technology was still at the development stage,’€™ says Dr Ludlow-Palafox.