Thanks to investment by the SIAD Group, greenhouse gas emissions at Enviral's bioethanol production plant have been reduced by up to 30%.

The SIAD Group, in collaboration with Enviral, a member of the Envien Group, and Slovenské Liehovary a likérky, has installed a new plant for the capture and liquefaction of biogenic carbon dioxide. The plant, developed in Leopoldov (Slovak Republic), contributes to significantly reducing CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels and was built by SIAD through its companies SIAD Slovakia and Tecno Project Industriale. SIAD Slovakia, founded in 1998, supplies technical, medical and special gases and will distribute carbon dioxide in the Slovak market and neighbouring countries. 

The carbon dioxide capture technology is designed by Tecno Project Industriale (TPI), a SIAD Group company specialising in CO₂ capture, recovery and liquefaction. The carbon dioxide capture and liquefaction plant required an investment of approximately €11 million from SIAD. The plant will generate around 10 new direct and indirect jobs. The SIAD Group and the Envien Group have decided to develop this project together, drawing on their respective strengths. On the one hand, the SIAD Group has already installed more than 300 carbon dioxide capture plants worldwide. 

On the other hand, Enviral's Leopoldov plant is ideal for TPI technology thanks to the capacity and purity of the raw biogenic CO₂ from the fermentation process and the existing industrial infrastructure. Carbon dioxide has a wide range of uses, including as a food ingredient in carbonated drinks, food preservation, intensifying plant cultivation in sustainable greenhouses and vertical farms, cooling, sandblasting and cleaning, water treatment and refrigerated transport. In the carbon dioxide supply chain, as in other markets linked to the energy transition such as hydrogen, biomethane and the environment, the SIAD Group uniquely combines the know-how and solutions of its engineering sector with innovative applications of industrial gases. I am proud of our Group's Carbon Capture Storage and Utilisation (CCUS) technologies and the expertise of our engineers and technicians, who create a unique solution for the environment and for our customers," said Bernardo Sestini, President and CEO of the SIAD Group. 

TPI technology captures biogenic CO₂ from the gas produced during the fermentation stage of bioethanol production: corn starch is converted into ethyl alcohol through a biotechnological process. The CO₂-containing fermentation gases are transported through a pipeline to the SIAD plant for final purification and liquefaction. The food-grade CO₂ is stored in cryogenic tanks and then transported to customers. The annual production capacity is 40,000 tonnes of biogenic CO₂ for food use, with a potential increase to 80,000 tonnes in the second phase of the project. This makes it the only and largest plant of its kind in Slovakia. This amount represents about one third of the total CO₂ produced by Enviral during bioethanol production. By recovering biogenic CO₂, the carbon footprint of bioethanol is reduced, resulting in partially neutral emissions. "Thanks to this technology, we are able to capture and liquefy carbon dioxide of biogenic origin, thus avoiding the extraction of carbon dioxide of fossil origin from underground sources. Instead, it is captured directly from production at our plant and is not released freely into the air. This beneficial effect on the environment, in the form of reduced fossil CO2, is by no means negligible," said Peter Kostík, CEO of the ENVIEN GROUP.