CAT Graduate business ‘Adaptavate’ secures Innovate UK funding

Adaptavate, an innovative building materials business, co-founded by CAT graduate Tom Robinson in 2014 has secured £500,000 Government funding to take CO2 from the atmosphere and polluting industries and lock it into the biomaterials of the future.

The development project will be co-funded by Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency to develop new techniques to take CO2 from emitting processes, such as lime and cement and locking this into construction products, like the companies award-winning Breathaboard technology.

The project also builds on the strong relationships that Adaptavate has built with the University of Bath and Biocomposite Development Centre in York. In parallel the project is also asking the question; can the waste of these materials be used as soil nutrients for use in agriculture, to grow more crops and bio-materials, completing a circular economy approach to construction bio-materials?

Ground-up construction waste will be compared to the digestate from Anaerobic Digestion (AD) of the same material. The AD process also generates synthetic gas, predominantly Methane. Here a second and third nutrient loop can be exploited as the Methane created can be burnt to create electricity to run the factory, creating CO2 , which can sequestered in the curing of new material. This is totally in line with Adaptavate’s purpose: to positively disrupt the material flows in the construction sector.

CAT graduate and Managing Director of Adaptavate, Tom said:

“This is a really exciting project at a pivotal point for Adaptavate. It enables us to grow the team and technical partnerships at a really exciting time in our industry. It affirms Adaptavate and the partner universities as leading the way in CO2 sequestration in building materials and industrial processes – helping us reach ambitious CO2 targets that are being set by governments and industrial bodies”.

At the end of his MSc Tom focused his dissertation on developing a product that balances performance, workability, and sustainability which in turn led to the founding of Adaptavate where Tom and now other CAT graduates including Jeff Ive, Technical Director at Adaptavate set to rethink and redesign the way building materials are produced, used and disposed of.

Jeff Ive, Technical Director at Adaptavate said:

“Environmentally positive solutions are not one size fits all, and neither are business cases. This project will allow us to scale the next generation of bio-materials though absorbing CO2 from emitting processes all over the world through localised production models. This is a really transformative way of looking at this conservative, vertically integrated industry that is looking for a step change”.

Jeff has also been a guest lecture on our postgraduate courses showcasing Adaptavate’s work and their products, providing our students with invaluable knowledge and insights from within the industry.

We look forward to seeing how the project progresses and if you’re interested in following their work you can find out more on their website.

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