The Toowoomba company turning difficult materials into biochar
The new CEO of innovative Toowoomba company Pyrocal has a vision for a cleaner, greener, more sustainable future.
Development
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There’s currently one Pyrocal demonstration plant at the Wellcamp Business Park, capable of carbonising typically difficult to dispose of materials like tyres.
The ultimate vision for Arun Pratap, Pyrocal’s new CEO, is to have a line of the machines processing different material types, reducing the amount of material that would otherwise end up in landfill and sequestering carbon at the same time.
The company started in 2014 and there are already Pyrocal systems in eight countries around the world.
But the pilot site at Wellcamp is a first for Toowoomba.
“This is the culmination of what’s gone before it – it’s the top of the range model for now,” Mr Pratap said.
The $3.5 million system is currently testing materials with Toowoomba Regional Council, such as tyres, green waste, and mattresses.
The materials are carbonised at 650 degrees celcius.
“These are things that from an environmental and social responsibility point of view are saying well, that would otherwise go to landfill, take up space, and cost the council money in order to manage it and ultimately replace it and rehabilitate those landfill sites,” Mr Pratap said.
“We can … significantly reduce the quantum of the material that needs to go to landfill and at the same time create value-added products like biochar.
“(Biochar) can be used for tree planting, parks, fertiliser, a whole range of things.”
Mr Pratap began as CEO of Pyrocal on February 1, after finishing up at Toowoomba Regional Council as general manager of finance and business strategy.
Pyrocal chairman Durrell Hammon said Mr Pratap’s business acumen and his shared vision for sustainability in waste management made him the ideal choice to lead the company as it continued its rapid growth.
Mr Pratap said he saw an obvious synergy between his two roles.
“There are applications for Pyrocal’s systems across many industries, but with my council background the fit with council waste streams is obvious and game changing,” he said.
“Pyrocal’s brand new, $3.5m demonstration site at the Wellcamp Business Park will showcase our capability in processing waste streams that are relevant to councils and industry more generally.”
“We can extract value from such waste streams while complying with the emissions regulatory requirements.”
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