Project Commercial Demonstration Facility CS1

Project Owner... Licella  
Project name Commercial Demonstration Facility CS1  
Status operational  
Startup 2021  
Geodata
Country Australia  
City Somersby  
Production
Type TRL 6-7 Demonstration  
Technology Hydrothermal Liquefaction  
Technology additional information Cat-HTR (TM) Technology  
Raw Material organic residues and waste streams  
Input 1 Biomass residues  
Input 2 Plastics  
Output 1 bio-oil (1,800 t/y )  
Output additional information The CS-1 facility is capable of producing up to 1000 barrels of sustainable oil per annum.  
Additional Information
Partners Licella has progressively scaled up its Cat-HTR™ technology on-site in Somersby over the past 17 years to become the world’s leading HTL platform. Commercial Stage 1 (CS1), is the small-scale Cat-HTR™ commercial facility commissioned in 2020. The facility is operated by Licella in short runs to support the commercial projects globally, the Cat-HTR™ technology’s development and continuous process improvement. Licella also operates a small pilot plant dedicated to trials and technology development of mixed waste and plastic.  
Technology Brief Whilst older thermal upgrading technologies, such as pyrolysis and gasification, were developed in a less carbon-constrained world, the Cat-HTR™ has been developed to retain as much carbon in its products as possible. This results in a higher efficiency process which produces a high quality, stable and energy dense oil. By using water to control the thermo-chemical reactions, the Cat-HTR™ process operates at lower temperatures, using less energy, and retains more carbon in its products, compared to pyrolysis and gasification. This makes the platform well suited to our carbon-constrained world. By comparison, pyrolysis and gasification are uncontrolled reactions, resulting in a significant percentage of carbon from the feedstock ending up as either solid char or gas (CO2).  
Additional Information The Cat-HTR™ is a powerful decarbonisation platform that produces high value, low-carbon products, such as renewable transportation fuels and biochemicals. The CS-1 facility represents a universal HTL platform that has the ability to process the widest range of post-consumer biomass residues and plastics in the world.  
Contact Information
https://www.licella.com/projects-partners/  
Last Update: 2025-12-10 11:34:59