WIREDGOV

World-first technology developed by Daresbury firm, Arvia, is part of an exciting, high profile contract awarded by the US Department of Energy (DOE).

With technology it researched and developed at STFC’s Innovations Technology Centre (I-TAC) at Sci-Tech Daresbury, Arvia has partnered with US companies NuVision Engineering and Perma-Fix Environmental Services in the contract with the DOE, which is to demonstrate an innovative technology for the treatment of industrial radioactive waste.

Arvia’s patented technology has already been successfully proven to treat radioactive oils, which currently have no viable treatment option. It means that liquid can be stored without the destabilising effect of radioactive, organic material which, over time, causes storage drums to perish and leak. Arvia is the only business in the world to have developed such technology.

Dr Martin Morlidge, Manager at I-TAC, said "This high profile contract with the US Department of Energy is superb news. Arvia is an excellent example of how innovation through access to STFC’s I-TAC facilities and expertise, teamed with the wider benefits of locating at the Sci-Tech Daresbury Enterprise Zone, can help small, innovative companies achieve success in the global economy – in this case, with the US Department of Energy.”

Under the contract Arvia is delivering its technology to the DOE, with NuVision Engineering, a US supplier of technology and engineering solutions to government and commercial nuclear markets, which won the contract taking the project management lead.

The efficiency of the process to treat radioactive wastes containing furans and dioxins will be demonstrated initially at the Perma-Fix environmental facilities in Gainesville, Florida, and will focus on optimisation trials for simulated wastes. This will then move on to the demonstration of treatment of actual wastes from the DOE Oak Ridge site early in 2014.

Mike Lodge, CEO at Arvia, said: “This is an extremely valuable opportunity for Arvia to showcase its revolutionary technology against some of the world’s most challenging wastes and to demonstrate that these wastes can now be safely processed.”

A spin out company of the University of Manchester, Arvia located its R&D team at Daresbury’s I-TAC, part of the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), in 2011 to develop and enhance its technology. Here it joined a healthy list of pioneering companies to benefit from £3million of cutting edge technology and laboratory facilities available to small businesses. Since then, as it has gone from strength to strength Arvia has continued to expand its office and laboratory presence within the Sci-Tech Daresbury science and innovation campus.

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Notes to Editors

Images available: The Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Arvia owns a proven, unique technology that destroys toxic and non-biodegradable organic wastes using adsorption coupled with electrochemical regeneration. The technology has been developed for the destruction of low-level radioactive waste (LLW) and intermediate-level radioactive waste (ILW) oils with Magnox Limited. Further development has taken place for the treatment of plutonium contaminated organics at the Sellafield site in the UK.

NuVision Engineering is a leading edge technology and applications engineering company focused on providing value in commercial nuclear and power plant industries, government waste remediation facilities / waste cleanup and fabrication services.

Perma-Fix Environmental Services Inc. has more than 22 years of experience and has performed over $2 billion worth of nuclear, environmental, and waste treatment services. Perma-Fix employs ~500 professionals and specialists throughout the United States and the United Kingdom.