Enval Ltd

Company Name: Enval Ltd

Headquarters: Alconbury, Huntingdon

Headcount: Eight people

Profile: Enval designs and manufactures recycling equipment and modular plants for recycling plastic aluminium laminates.

The company focuses on providing specialist solutions and addressing environmental and regulatory challenges across industrial, commercial and municipal sectors to deliver value from waste for its customers.

Enval's technology enables to unlock the potential of high performance materials by creating sustainable and economically viable end‑of‑life solutions. Thanks to its microwave induced pyrolysis process, Enval can recycle plastic aluminium laminates.

The company's story began when Professor Howard Chase at the University of Cambridge started investigating environmental applications for the microwave heating of carbon. Joining Professor Chase for his PhD, CEO Carlos Ludlow-Palafox conducted substantial research into microwave induced pyrolysis for plastics. The next few years saw a successful worldwide patent application and the founding of Enval Ltd.

Spinning-out of Cambridge and having secured significant investment from a syndicate of investors, Enval built the first pilot-plant of the process. Following investment from major multinational brands, the company began work on the first commercial demonstration plant for the Enval process.

Following completion of the plant at the Enterprise Zone in Alconbury, Enval now works with waste handlers, large-scale laminate waste producers, local authorities and consumers to encourage the collection and recycling of plastic aluminium laminates and to roll out more plants across the UK and globally.