The SIAD Group is investing €11 million in a CO2 recovery and liquefaction plant in Slovakia

Leopoldov (Slovakia) – The SIAD Group, through its subsidiary SIAD Slovakia, in collaboration with Enviral, a member of the Envien Group, and Slovenské liehovary a likérky, is today inaugurating an innovative plant for the recovery and liquefaction of biogenic carbon dioxide from short carbon cycle sources.

The inauguration will be attended by the Italian Ambassador to Slovakia, His Excellency Dr. Gianclemente De Felice, and the Mayor of Leopoldov, Mgr. Terézia Kavuliakova, MBA.

The plant, constructed in Leopoldov (Slovakia), 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 1997, supplies technical, medical, and specialty gases, and thanks to this new investment, will distribute carbon dioxide in the Slovak market and neighboring countries. The carbon dioxide capture technology is designed by Tecno Project Industriale (TPI), a SIAD Group company specializing in CO2 capture, recovery, and liquefaction. The carbon dioxide capture and liquefaction plant required an investment of €11 million by SIAD. The plant is already operational with a workforce of 10 direct and indirect employees.

The SIAD Group and the Envien Group 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 at Enviral and the existing industrial infrastructure. Carbon dioxide has a wide range of uses, as it is used as a food ingredient in carbonated drinks, for food preservation, to intensify plant cultivation in sustainable greenhouses and vertical farms, for cooling, sandblasting and cleaning, water treatment, and refrigerated transport.

TPI technology captures biogenic CO2 from the gas produced during the fermentation phase in bioethanol production: corn starch is converted into ethyl alcohol through a biotechnological process. The fermentation gases containing CO2 are conveyed through a pipeline to the SIAD plant for final purification and liquefaction. Food-grade CO2 is stored in cryogenic tanks and then transported to customers.

The annual production capacity is 40,000 tons of biogenic food-grade CO2, with a potential increase to 80,000 tons in the second phase of the project. This makes it the only and largest plant of its kind in Slovakia. This amounts to a reduction in the emission footprint of bioethanol by 35 per cent. By recovering biogenic CO2, the carbon footprint of bioethanol is reduced, resulting in partially neutral emissions.

Bernardo Sestini, Chairman and CEO of the SIAD Group, said, "In the carbon dioxide supply chain, as well as in other markets linked to 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 Utilization (CCUS) technologies and the expertise of our engineers and technicians, who create a unique solution for the environment and for customers.”

“Thanks to this technology, we are able to capture and liquefy biogenic carbon dioxide, thus avoiding the extraction of fossil carbon dioxide from underground sources. On the contrary, 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 emissions, is by no means negligible," said Robert Spisak, Envien Group Chairman of the Board

Gianclemente De Felice, HE Italian Ambassador to Slovakia, concludes: "The inauguration of SIAD's new production plant represents an important step forward for our business presence in Slovakia. Innovation, extremely high technological standards, attention to the environment and a very promising market for the products are undoubtedly the strengths of this new investment by the SIAD Group. It is an example of Italian entrepreneurship capable of combining values and quality that I am sure will prove to be highly successful."