Research centre

A Research Centre for process innovation

Establishment of the Ecotec research centre

At the end of the 1990s, after twenty years of activity, the Ecotec Group decided to set up its own Research Centre in order to improve its technological capacity and supply the market with increasingly innovative products.

The building, where Ecotec's Research Centre is located, is divided into three operational areas: the offices, which cover an area of about 500 square metres, the laboratories, which cover about 600 square metres and and the pilot plant testing area, which occupies about 1600 square metres (including the workshop for plant manufacturing).

Research centre activities

Currently, the Research Centre is mainly engaged in the applicative study of the following topics:

Research for waste treatment

Research for the treatment of special waste is carried out by specialised and experienced staff in a multidisciplinary context. The Ecotec Research Centre's instrumentation, equipment and pilot plants support the waste treatment research.

Metal recovery research

Research for metal recovery from waste is first carried out in the laboratory, in order to identify the optimal processes; later, depending on the specific metal recovery process, researches are then conducted on a larger scale using the equipment and pilot plants of the Ecotec Research Centre.

Research for cold plasma technologies

At Ecotec Research Centre there are two pilot plants for conducting cold plasma technology treatment research. The applications of cold plasma technologies can then be transferred to industrial plants, according to the customer's specifications.

Research for thermal plasma technologies

Thermal plasma research is initially carried out using thermodynamic calculation and simulations. Subsequently, based on the results obtained, the use of thermal plasma technologies is tested in the Ecotec Research Centre pilot plants.

Ecotec research centre instrumentation and techniques

The main instrumentation available uses the following analytical techniques: ICP-OES spectrometry, Atomic Absorption Spectrometry, X-Ray Diffractometry (XRD), X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometry (XRF), Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS), Ion Chromatography, UV-Visible Spectrophotometry, IR Spectrophotometry.

The laboratories are also equipped with thermo gravimetric balances (up to 1600 °C) interfaced with an IR spectrometer, a total organic carbon meter, as well as the equipment necessary for sample preparation, such as, such as a ring microniser and a microwave mineraliser.

Research Centre pilot plants

Thanks to pilot plants, it is possible to carry out waste treatment and metal recovery research on different materials, in accordance with a quality management system certified by DNV Italia to UNI EN ISO 9001:2008 standards.

C.R.E. custom services

The Research Centre is available for carrying out private or co-financed research projects.