Green Lizard Technologies: novel purification of vegetable oils
Winner of the Emerging Technologies Competition 2018
Case study: April 2020
Vegetable oils, such as palm oil, contain fatty acids and carcinogens which must be removed before it is deemed fit for human consumption but the current methods for doing so often result in high oil losses and generate waste.
A number of problems also tend to arise from the degumming, bleaching and deodorising processes, not to mention the impact of transportation and extended storage times which often result in degradation and increased acid content, meaning secondary processing is required at the customer end.
Green Lizard Technologies, a spin-out from Queen’s University Belfast which focuses on taking innovative green chemistry technologies and developing them into commercial ventures, won the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Emerging Technologies Competition in 2017 for its development of a vitamin-based technology for the purification of vegetable oils.
Impact from winning the competition
Green Lizard Technologies received a cash prize of £10,000, training at the Cambridge Business School and tailored support from one of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s multinational partner companies, KPMG, for a year.
Commenting on the impact winning the Emerging Technologies Competition had on Green Lizard Technologies, Project Manager Eoghain O’Hara, said:
“The funding we received as part of winning the award enabled us to run a multi-ton trial at our demonstration facilities in Teesside, proving the technology is applicable at semi-commercial scale. Having reached the milestone of semi-commercial demonstration we are on the look-out for potential partners to bring the technology to market. Since carrying out these trials Green Lizard Technologies has diversified the application of this technology and we are now focused on extending the life of cooking oil and expect begin commercial trials in early 2020’’
Green Lizard Technologies is currently developing methods which work with a wide range of oils to meeting growing global demand as this is an issue faced by every producer.
What the team say
“The funding we received as part of winning the award enabled us to run a multi-ton trial at our demonstration facilities in Teesside, proving the technology is applicable at semi-commercial scale.''
Eoghain O’Hara, Project Manager, Green Lizard Technologies
Contact us
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- Emily Vipond