NEW YORK, April 14, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Novo Energies Corporation (OTCBB:NVNC) ("Novo" or the "Company"), an alternative energy company, announced today that it has retained Advanced Fuel Research, Inc. ("AFR"), a Connecticut-based research, product development and analytical services firm. AFR has specific expertise in pyrolysis and waste to energy, core components of Novo's strategy to recycle waste tires to energy, carbon black and steel.
AFR has conducted several research and development projects related to conversion of used tires into useful products. A pyrolysis process was developed by AFR for conversion of used tires into activated carbon, carbon black, and fuel gases. A hydrothermal treatment process for lignins derived from pulping operations was also developed for production of carbon materials such as carbon fibers, brake pads, and activated carbon. Under NASA funding, a pyrolysis process was also developed to recycle plant biomass, paper, plastic, and human wastes into useful products. A recent white paper summarizes the NASA projects and publications: Pyrolysis Process Development at Advanced Fuel Research, Inc. (AFR). As industry experts in synthetic fuels, combustion systems, pyrolytic reactions and waste to energy processes, AFR will assist Novo with commercial development of its proposed off-take products, including recovered synthetic oil and carbon black.
"At AFR, we are very excited to be associated with Novo. Many professionals at AFR have devoted most of their professional lives to researching and developing pyrolysis and developing valuable commercial products. We look forward to assisting Novo in producing commercial products from waste tires," stated Dr. Michael A. Serio, President of AFR.
Faisal Butt, Vice President Corporate Finance and Communications of Novo stated, "We are delighted to work with AFR and two of its principals, Dr. Michael A. Serio and Dr. Marek Wojtowicz, distinguished researchers and practitioners in the alternative energy field with expertise in pyrolytic systems, synthetic fuels and waste to energy processes. Their work and experience with organizations like the EPA, NASA and DOE should be highly valuable in assisting Novo to commercialize its waste to energy technology."
About Michael A. Serio, Ph.D.:
Dr. Serio has been a Principal Investigator on experimental and/or modeling studies on the pyrolysis, gasification, liquefaction, and combustion of coal; characterization and development of advanced jet fuel formulations; pyrolysis of biomass and waste materials; pollution formation in combustion systems; FT-IR monitoring of combustion systems; advanced fire detection methods; and polymer thermal degradation. For several years, he led the team that developed AFR's widely used FG-DVC model for the pyrolysis of coal, biomass and related materials.
Dr. Serio has been employed at AFR since March 1984, joining the company after receiving his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also holds a B.S. degree in chemical engineering, "with distinction," from Cornell University.
Dr. Serio has been a Principal Investigator or Program Manager on contracts and grants for several government agencies, including NSF, DOE, DOD, EPA, NASA and USDA. For several years, he was a member of the Industrial Advisory Committee for the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Connecticut and is currently a member of the editorial board for the journal, Fuel. Dr. Serio has served as Chair, Program Chair, Program Secretary, and Trustee for the American Chemical Society (ACS) Division of Fuel Chemistry. He also served as a member of the joint CCR/ACS/AIChE task force on the DOE energy research budget in 1996-97 and was a consultant on a five year coal research project sponsored by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
Dr. Serio has six patents and more than 150 publications, including two encyclopedia chapters. He was the senior editor of a book titled "Synthesis and Characterization of Advanced Materials." He is a member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the American Chemical Society, the Cornell Society of Engineers and the MIT Chapter of Sigma Xi. He currently serves as the president of Advanced Fuel Research, Inc.
About Marek Wojtowicz, Ph.D.:
Dr. Marek A. Wojtowicz, Vice President for Clean Energy and Carbon Materials at AFR, has extensive expertise in carbon materials, coal and biomass pyrolysis, gasification, and combustion, air-pollution control (NOx, N2O, SOx, mercury), solid-waste utilization, chemical reaction kinetics, and heterogeneous catalysis. Examples of research topics Dr. Wojtowicz has pursued are: experiments and modeling of reactions involved in coal and biomass pyrolysis, gasification, and combustion; diesel processing for use in fuel cells; hydrogen storage by adsorption on carbons with custom-engineered pore structure; the conversion of waste tires to value-added products (activated carbon for mercury sorption, carbon black); and the development of carbon electrodes for ultracapacitors (applications in hybrid and future-generation vehicles). He has more than 100 publications and patents in these areas. Dr. Wojtowicz received a Ph.D. degree in Chemical Engineering from Brown University under the direction of Professors Eric Suuberg and Joseph Calo. The subject of his thesis was the thermogravimetric study of active sites in the process of low-temperature oxidation of char, where he demonstrated that oxygen chemisorption on carbon is strongly temperature and pressure-dependent. His previous position was at the Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands, in Professor Jacob Moulijn's group. He was involved in a large, European Union funded project concerned with the evolution of nitrogen during coal pyrolysis, gasification, and combustion. As a group leader at AFR, Dr. Wojtowicz directed a number of R&D projects funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, NASA, the Environmental Protection Agency, and industrial clients. Dr. Wojtowicz serves on the Advisory Committee for the Chemical Engineering Program at Brown University. In years 1999–2004, he acted as the Program Secretary of the Fuel Chemistry Division of the American Chemical Society, he served as the Division Chair in 2005, and since 2007 he has been a Trustee. In addition, Dr. Wojtowicz is a member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and American Carbon Society. He has organized several symposia at international conferences, and he served on the Scientific Program Committee of the international Carbon 2004 conference held in Providence, RI, in 2004.
About Advanced Fuel Research, Inc.:
Advanced Fuel Research, Inc. (AFR), a privately owned business, founded in 1980, supplies research, product development and analytical services to corporate research centers, research institutes, and government laboratories. AFR's initial work employed advanced Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy methods to understand the starting composition and reaction behavior of fuels. AFR has diversified into a range of technologies and applications through the addition of leading researchers in a broad range of technical areas, including: gas turbine instrumentation, spectroscopy, carbon materials, distributed energy generation, alternative fuels, hydrogen generation and storage, waste-to-energy conversion, coal and biomass fuels, mercury control, radiation detection, robotic vision, electronic materials and testing devices, and image analysis. Applications include: defense, homeland security, energy, aerospace, chemical, semiconductor, pharmaceutical, biotech, fuel cells, medical and educational software.
AFR was a winner of the coveted Small Business Administration's 2000 Tibbetts Award for commercialization of innovative technologies, and, since 1994, AFR has been a five-time winner of the R&D 100 Award, for developing one of the 100 most technologically significant new products of the year. AFR supplies its services to leading industrial and academic clients throughout the world. AFR's core areas of expertise include: R&D Services, Energy Consulting, Clean Energy & Carbon Materials, Combustion Monitoring & Control, and Electronic Materials. AFR has performed research and development services for numerous companies and agencies of the federal government, including the DHS, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, EPA, and NASA. (www.afrinc.com).
About Novo Energies Corporation:
Novo is a public company trading on the Over the Counter Bulletin Board Market ("OTCBB") under the symbol NVNC, with offices in New York City, Montreal, and Quebec. The Company's mission is to develop and implement renewable energy solutions while maintaining its commitment to conserving energy and natural resources and helping reduce pollutants and unwanted wastes. Based upon a novel technology, Novo's wholly owned subsidiary WTL Renewable Energy, Inc. intends to plan, build, own and operate plants throughout North America that will transform tires to energy, carbon black, and steel, and waste plastics to energy. (www.novoenergies.com)
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