Longworth wins 2 Innovate UK bids for DEECOM® waste reduction projects

Posted on 23 November 2020

Longworth wins Innovate UK SBRI bid for exciting R&D projects into waste reduction.

The team are so pleased and proud to have been successful in their first two SBRI bids, entered in summer 2020.

Innovate UK – the UK’s innovations agency, drives productivity and economic growth by supporting businesses to develop and realise the potential of new ideas. They connect businesses to the partners, customers and investors that can help them turn ideas into commercially successful products and services and business growth.

Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) programmes fund organisations to conduct challenge-based research and development (R&D) to develop products or services that address a specific unmet public sector need. The intellectual property (IP) for these products and services remains with the applicant and therefore can be commercialised across the UK and internationally.

In response to a call from the Sustainable Innovation Fund (SIF), Longworth submitted two bids based around using our patented DEECOM® steam technology as a way to reduce, reclaim and reuse valuable waste streams.

Environmentalists at heart and innovators by nature, in 2004 Longworth patented DEECOM®, superheated, low pressure steam cleaning to abolish the use of harsh and harmful solvents such as TEG for dissolving these contaminants and began to convert customers one country at a time. A byproduct of this patented process is the reduction and possible reclamation of the removed polymers and/or fibres, leading to a second patent application in 2011 for waste management. This is followed by a further two patents pending in 2020. Our aim is for our ‘clean’ technology to replace less environmentally-friendly alternatives around the world across many fields of use.

If this can happen NOW, we can contribute significantly to ‘Zero Avoidable Waste economy by 2050’

Longworth Chairman and DEECOM® inventor John Norris says, “Industry partners and academics have added confidence in recent years by agreeing to its novelty and the unique benefits that we can bring to most waste streams. However Longworth lacks the capital funds to commercialise these innovations globally, therefore support such as this investment from Innovate UK is transformational.”

Innovate UK Executive Chair Dr Ian Campbell added, “In these difficult times we have seen the best of British business innovation. The pandemic is not just a health emergency but one that impacts society and the economy.

“B&M Longworth’s, along with every initiative Innovate UK has supported through this fund, is an important step forward in driving sustainable economic development. Each one is also helping to realise the ambitions of hard-working people.”

Project 1 aim: To drive behavioural change in processing and disposal of Absorbent Hygiene Product (AHP) waste ie nappies

Project 2 aim: To reduce and reuse the waste from textile/clothing waste

View all of 2020’s grant winners at Innovate UK