9 minute read
Asbestos Hub talks to Lloyd Ludlow about Phoenix Brands, the CapSure range of products and what he calls "The Evolution of the Revolution"
THE EVOLUTION OF THE REVOLUTION
Asbestos Hub talks to Lloyd Ludlow about Phoenix Brands, the CapSure range of products and what he calls “The Evolution of the Revolution”
How did you get to where you are with Phoenix?
I started Phoenix Brands about a year ago. I’ve been in the heavy demolition and industrial demolition and civil construction world for nearly 38 years, all over the world working on major projects and with major companies. Back in the day I was working in Europe on other projects like industrial demolition, nuclear demolition and decommission projects.
Over the years, I had problems with colleagues with mesothelioma, high lead levels in their blood and everything else. It became a pet peeve of mine. Four or five years ago I started to have some ideas on improving things.
Everybody was spraying water on debris. When I talked to colleagues, especially scientists, I knew that the water wasn’t actually encapsulating any of the dust. People didn’t grasp that the water evaporated and so it was just suspended in the air, or bounced off the floor. So I came up with a few ideas and I went to scientists that I knew, including Dr Arthur Frank from Drexel University in the US. Then I teamed up with a manufacturing company with scientists in the UK called Rutpen. So about four years ago I came up with this idea. In the demolition world, what do we use the most? Magnets. So I thought, we’re using magnets anyway, asbestos is positively charged so if I could get a formula that could be suspended in the air, that could draw these in like a magnet. So we created that formula. Negative charges were created for the asbestos and positive charges were created for silicon, etc.
We had these variants of this surfactant foam based material that could encapsulate the particles and create a zero release, then it becomes heavy and sticks to the floor. So I came up with this idea and put a patent together for the process and the product.
I’ve got four patents on it, and I own the trademarks on all the names. My wife Nicola came up with the name CapSure™ and helped with the branding.
As we got into it and as I did the trials with scientists in the UK, I came up with another idea. One of the biggest problems in the UK and the States is fly tipping and not knowing where the material came from. So I patented an idea for a taggant (Tracing Agent) in the mixture. It’s a natural product that goes into our products so we can trace the material all the way from manufacture to wholesale, use and then to the landfills. We’re not using that technology in the UK at the moment, but we have that technology patented and ready for future use.
When will that be ready to go in the UK?
It could be any day. In 2019, the European Specialist Forum awarded us the innovation prize for this technology, which we patented. Right now we’re in early days of manufacture and production. We’ve trialled it and it works perfectly but the only reason we haven’t put it in the products at the moment is because we’re working closely with getting the brand out there with the market leaders, Thermac UK.
Thermac is our only distribution for the UK and the Republic of Ireland and they work really closely with their demolition arm. It’s doing really well in the marine industry and in Artex especially. We’ve got four products out there. TriMax™ is a base for removing Artex through paint. It’s the only product you can spray that works within 30 seconds.
All of the products can have our taggant system in, so if somebody disposes of asbestos tiles over the hedge, the new system will be able to identify if CapSure™ had been used in any of the process. Our aim is to work with governments to mandate the use of CapSure™ technology within their health and safety plans and specifications.
Why Thermac?
I knew they understood my concept and believed in a safer workplace because I was involved in the industrial demolition world. Thermac is part of the Rhodar Group and so naturally I’d heard of Sean Doyle, who really understood my concept. I knew Rhodar was one of the top demolition companies in the UK and I Alpha™ is a sanitizer in tablet form. We’re selling this to the Australian market right now and getting ready to sell it into the US and the UK. It has been tested and will kill COVID.
We also have Capture Dissolve™, which is a totally natural product. Capture Dissolve™ and Dissolve Plus™ go onto bitumen, they can go on steel they can go on concrete and they completely break down the material. There’s no grinding necessary.
We’ve also just produced another product called Capture Lift™, which is a natural acid based product that works really well with the pH of concrete. It makes a clean finish and if the client wants a really clean finish to be able to re-varnish the concrete and it’s done that but this encapsulates all the asbestos containing materials.
wanted to be able to get samples and test the products with this calibre of company.
Sean contacted me one day and said he’d heard that we were developing our products and they’d love to test them. Sean and I are on the same page. We’re not out there to sell a product once and make money, we’re there for two reasons. First of all is the safety side. We want to create a product that’s going to make this industry safer. That’s why I worked with world renowned people like Dr Arthur Frank at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Dr Yvonne Waterman at the European Asbestos Forum and Dr Mavis Nye and her foundation to make Mesothelioma known as the silent killer it really is.
The second thing is that Sean said, “Look, this is going to revolutionise the industry but we’ve got to do it slowly.” We wanted to get it right. We didn’t want it to be sold cheaply and used incorrectly.
The methodology is the secret and it must be followed correctly using our specialised and certified equipment “Foam Box”, manufactured by the Hayes Group. Benefits of this methodology and products will enable clients to save up to 60 per cent on project costs from labour and time.
What’s your pitch to asbestos or demolition contractors?
The elevator pitch would be that we are creating a revolution in technology and ideas (The Evolution of the Revolution), so they have to be open to new ideas. Right now, we’re using up-to-date technology and this sometimes goes against what people think. When you put something like Capture Dissolve™ on the floor it’s working itself, but to people who are watching, they’ll think we are just waiting around. But you adopt new technology, take the labour that you used to use on a grinder and put it on something else, do two processes at the same time with one set of labour and save costs.
This methodology is completely different, but it works. We’ve tested it, we’ve trialled it and we have the best
How you envisage Phoenix Brands over the next 10 years?
We want to make the industry safer, especially with silicon dust and heavy metals like mercury. We are working very closely in the US on radiation encasement and encapsulation. We already have that technology and are also ready to release CapSure Prometheus™. We’re looking to be able to encapsulate radiation and heavy metals, especially in nuclear power plant demolition.
We work with a partner in Europe called Spray Cannon™, creating Capture Mist, a natural air purifying product that will be applied through spray cannons and drones, encapsulating and lasting five times longer than water. Using these methods, we also have a natural firefighting foam mist that is being tested in the wildfires of California.
We are also working with partners such as GSR Services from Hamburg, Germany on Marine demolition and maintenance of ships around the globe to make the process safer with products such as CapSure Pure™. companies in their industry that we’re working with to make this happen.
One of the things that I want to make sure people understand is that water does not encapsulate, it bounces dust around. All water does is move dust around. If you say, “Well, we can just put water in our mister and mist all day long,” you’re not getting to the root of the problem. You’re just pushing that
dust and those heavy metals to the ground, or into someone’s lungs.
There was a big power plant demolition in the UK last month. You’ve got heavy metals, you’ve got silica, you’ve got mercury, you’ve got lead, asbestos all being released into the atmosphere. Now that’s going to blow somewhere so they’re spraying water on it. All that water does is bounce it somewhere else. So we created Capture Mist™, which could have been applied by the misters on the ground, through spray cannon or drone technology to encapsulate the dust.
We couldn’t patent drone technology because it’s already out there, but we’ve adopted a system where it can spray this mist. We could be spraying on that dust as it happens. We’re also looking at the technology and I’m working with Controlled Demolition on this.
We’re trying to come up with an idea of implosion release so that milliseconds before an implosion, a spray is released encapsulating the material. We tested it in New Zealand when I was working with a large demolition company out there after the earthquakes, so we know what the problem is and we can come up with a solution to fix it. We’ve just got to get the clients understanding that water is not encapsulating.
We encapsulate dust with Capture Mist™, then it doesn’t evaporate. It lasts five times as long as water so they have to understand that they’re going to pay to put that into their system but it’s going to be a very small payment in the long term because you’re not having to buy water and spray it five times. You put this on once. There’s labour and material savings, they have to understand that. It doesn’t create as much waste because it compounds down and it goes into a solid that is scooped up in an absorbent.
And when they’re making bids, they’re offering your technology, which isn’t a particularly expensive solution, but for them it’s an environmental help. It will push them further up the ladder in terms when it comes to tenders.
We work with professionals as far as Colombia South America right now. We’re working at a governmental level trying to get specifications changed across the world. We’re working really well in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Netherlands and Switzerland, where they know they will use our technology.
