Rainer Pesti

Via the Applied Research Programme of Enterprise Estonia, the state is set to provide 1.7 million euros in support for the applied research to be carried out as part of the second stage of the oil shale ash enhancement project of Ragn-Sells OSA. This will enable the company, in cooperation with researchers from the University of Tartu and TalTech and scientists from international research laboratories, to carry out next-level industrial tests for the production of calcium carbonate.

We are pleased to announce that Enterprise Estonia has supported applied research in Ragn-Sells’s OSA project in the amount of 255,269 Euros. The support helps us to carry out industrial-scale trials of production of climate-neural calcium carbonate from oil shale ash and design the preliminary version of the production processes and production unit.

Synthetic calcium carbonate represents the biggest share of the materials produced from oil shale ash. The food and pharmaceutical sectors are the best examples of industries in which natural calcium carbonate is used. As this material originates from the manufacturing industry, the calcium carbonate produced from the oil shale ash of Ida-Viru County will most probably be used as a filler in the paint, plastic and paper industry. 

Today, electricity in Estonia is still mostly produced from oil shale, because the alternatives do not yet produce the necessary volumes. Up to 1 million tons of ash waste is left behind from the production of oil shale energy per year, and by valorizing it, we can significantly contribute to reducing the environmental footprint of our energy production as a solution that is already needed today. A cleaner environment in Ida-Virumaa and throughout Estonia.