DISCUSSIONS with potential customers are already underway a year before a pioneering low carbon technology centre is due to open.

Orders worth £2.5m have also been placed for hi-tech equipment at the national High Temperature Innovation Centre, the largest facility of its kind in the UK.

The Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) and Tata Steel announced in October that they were to establish the £5m facility, which is intended to find new ways of converting waste products into fuels and raw materials. The research to be carried out at the facility, based at Tata Steels Teesside Technology Centre, in Grangetown, Middlesbrough, is seen as crucial for industries such as energy generation, construction, steel and waste management.

It will enable testing and demonstration of technologies developed in the laboratory to prove they can work on a commercial scale.

As well as creating around 30 new engineering and research jobs the centre is expected to attract new overseas investment to the Tees Valley.

Mark Sexton, of Tata Steel's Research, Development and Technology division, said: "This new centre will provide innovation and technology support to businesses in the Tees Valley as well as helping to attract other companies to the region.

"It reflects our strong commitment to European research and development as well as to the Teesside region."

CPI's Director of Strategy, Dr Graham Hillier, said the centre would give companies the opportunity to benefit from CPI's innovation skills and Tata Steel's knowledge of high-temperature processes.

"This unique centre will be open to companies of all sizes on an "open access" basis and will strengthen the UK's international competitiveness in the development of new processes for the energy, construction, materials, metals, waste management, reclamation and process industries," he said.

"It will help a range of industries to reduce the amount of energy and raw materials they consume, while at the same time increasing recycling rates for these businesses."

Orders have been placed for the pilot scale equipment, a gasifier and a pyrolysis unit, that will form the core of initial research.

Facilities are also available to test the effectiveness of a wide range of materials such as unusable oils and organic wastes in gasification and pyrolysis processes.

The project is receiving £2.5m from One North East through the Tees Valley Industrial Programme, with Tata Steel and the CPI investing the remaining £2.5m.