Australian Hydrogen Research and Development company Star Scientific Limited today announced that it was developing a second pilot project for Central Coast packaging company Trendpac.
Star Scientific Limited has developed the Hydrogen Energy Release Optimiser (HERO®), a catalyst that converts hydrogen and oxygen into heat, without burning. There are no greenhouse gasses produced, and the only other output is pure water.
Trendpac is a private contract packaging company serving major companies and supermarket chains. Their products include shampoos and detergents, many of which are formulated and mixed on-site.
Trendpac is a founding member of the Central Coast Hydrogen Food Cluster, an initiative of Star Scientific Limited and Central Coast Industry Connect. Other founding members include Mars Australia Pty Ltd, for whom Star Scientific Limited is developing its inaugural pilot.
Group Global Chairman of Star Scientific Limited, Andrew Horvath, said that the company was delighted to be expanding its work with neighbouring companies.
He went on to mention that the orthodox view is that hydrogen’s role is to decarbonise heavy industry through complexand capital-intensive processes like “green steel”. While there is no doubt that is in the future, there is a lot of work that renewable hydrogen can do to decarbonise other industries, such as food production and packaging.
He further stated that the pilot for Trendpac is complementary to the work the company is doing for Mars. While both involve the greenhouse gas-free production of process heat they are slightly different industrial processes. The learnings of each will feed into the development of the other.
CEO of Trendpac, Steven Hyde, said “we are excited to be working with Star Scientific Limited as they develop practical and innovative equipment using HERO® within a production environment.”
Frank Sammut, CEO of Central Coast Industry Connect, also said, “Star Scientific is blessed to be in the middle of theCentral Coast’s food production cluster at Berkeley Vale and to be working with companies who share our ethics on sustainability”.
