Catagen: Belfast 'green-tech' firm plans 100 new jobs

Catagen is based in the docks area of east Belfast

The Belfast-based technology firm Catagen is planning to create 100 jobs over the next two years as it rolls out new green energy products.

The firm specialises in testing catalytic converters for high-end car companies.

It is using underlying technology to develop cheaper and more efficient ways to produce green hydrogen.

Hydrogen is expected to be important in replacing diesel as a fuel for large vehicles and in industrial processes.

Earlier this year, the firm won funding from the government's Net Zero Innovation Portfolio to help accelerate research and testing of its range of net zero products.

Using that funding it has developed new ways to generate green hydrogen, bio-hydrogen and e-fuels, as well as complementary systems for carbon capture and hydrogen compression.

'Real ingenuity'

Those technologies are now at prototype stage and the firm aims to have full-scale demonstrators operating by 2024.

Catagen's chief technology officer, Prof Roy Douglas, said his team has "has shown real ingenuity to develop these prototypes and put us on a dedicated path to delivering industrial-scale system solutions".

"We are seeing tremendous demand for these innovations across manufacturing, electricity, agriculture and transportation but there are steps still to take to make our climate technology system a mass deployed commercial reality."

The firm is also working with the County Fermanagh-based building products firm, Mannok.

The manufacture of building products like cement is very energy intensive and will be challenging to reduce carbon emissions from that sector.

Kevin Lunney, operations director of Mannok Build, said the firm has commissioned Catagen to develop a feasibility study to understand the benefits of integrating its hydrogen and e-fuel production techniques, using waste heat from the cement manufacturing process to reduce emissions.