Ongoing R&D projects

Estonia’s dependence on oil shale for energy has created enormous deposits of ash. The government has pointed out this as a non-sustainable way of going forward, for either humanity or the climate. Our vision is, instead of continuing to put debts to our future generation, to transform this into an opportunity to make the Estonian government a front leader in the green industry. With our solution, we will use the potential of oil shale ash as a resource and make the most out of it and in that way minimising new mining of critical raw material.

Ragn-Sells is cooperating with scientists of Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech) and the University of Tartu and has developed a solution to extract valuable resources and create a circular solution for recovering resources.

This patented technology not only captures carbon dioxide from the incineration but fuses it with existing ash to produce a material called PCC. This means stopping carbon dioxide from going into the atmosphere while replacing conventional PCC production which also generates substantial emissions today.

With this technology, every tonne of PCC produced from oil shale ash stops one tonne of greenhouse gas from going into the atmosphere. Roughly half of this reduction is due to replacing conventional production of PCC from limestone, and the other half from using captured carbon dioxide as a raw material.

This innovation project is a good example of a collaborative effort between the private and public sectors.

Read more about the OSA-project