The Victorian EPA’s HazWaste Fund has fully approved, in principle, $780,000 in funding support for Intec (ASX:INL) to progress its proposed $2.85 million project with GB Galvanizing Service and apply its novel process for treating spent pickle liquor and other wastes from the galvansing industry.

Hydrochloric acid ‘pickle liquor’ is used worldwide to clean and prepare steel prior to hotdip zinc galvanising. Over time, the acid accumulates contaminants from the surface of the steel, particularly zinc and iron, with the acid strength depleting and eventually becoming unusable.

In Victoria (and elsewhere) this ‘spent pickle liquor’ is currently stabilised and disposed of - at rapidly increasing cost - to a licensed waste landfill facility. The existing landfill-oriented stabilisation technologies produce approximately 2.3 tonnes of waste per tonne of spent pickle liquor treated.

By comparison, Intec’s proprietary heavy metals recycling process is intended to yield zero waste, instead converting all materials to useful products: zinc metal and hydrochloric acid for onsite re-use in the host galvanising operation, with iron oxide and calcium sulphate sold as filler materials to industry.

Intec signed an MoU with GBG in May, and is looking to construct a facility to treat all 1ML of spent liquor the company produces annually. Depending on commercial considerations, the facility may be expanded to 3ML capacity, enough to handle all of Victoria’s spent pickle liquor.

For more on the technology and proposed project with GBG, click here to download a feature article from the May issue of WME Environment Business Magazine.

Intec’s corporate development manager, Dave Sammut, told Inside Waste today’s funding announcement follows a close working relationship with the EPA. It was the regulator that first introduced Intec to GBG through its HazWaste Expo held last November.

“Obviously the Vic EPA is one of the most forward thinking EPA’s in Australia for their proactive approach to fostering clean technology,” said Sammut.

“We certainly hoped [the EPA funding] would come, and certainly it’s a win-win for everybody… the HazWaste Fund collects funds through the landfill levy from Victorian industry, specifically to promote clean technologies. We’re serving exactly the goal that they’re trying to achieve.”

Of critical importance to the company, its technological process – once proven – will be applicable around Australia and also in international markets: “the problems involved are common across the galvanising industry.”

Investors clearly expect that success through the Victoria project may open more doors for the company, with the INL shareprice immediately jumping 33% to $0.02 on today’s funding announcement.

“We’re taking steps that are all proven individually, and putting them together in a new and novel way. So we can have a fair degree of confidence in the outcome,” said Sammut.

While tight-lipped on details of a recent trip abroad, he said the company has been especially keen to explore opportunities to apply its technology in China, where it has “a range of projects under consideration”.

The HazWaste grant is subject to execution of a legally binding funding agreement with EPA Victoria. The regulator has also handed out other grants this week, totaling some $5 million, and expects to release details of other projects in the near future.

Meanwhile, EPA Victoria has called for applications from interested exhibitors for its second HazWaste Expo, to be held in Melbourne on Tuesday November 10.

It is “expecting this year’s expo to be even bigger and more successful than 2008, with over 40 exhibitors and around 500 attendees,” and no doubt it is also hoping there are some more successful linkages made between waste generators and treatment providers.

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