The winner of the 5th edition of the scientific innovation competition, Falling Walls Lab is known. It is Kouamé Koffi Alain, who has been converting plastic waste into fuel in Ivory Coast since 2018. The young entrepreneur thus stands out from the 19 other candidates (researchers, inventors, scientists, etc.) with equally innovative ideas.
This privileged position gives Kouamé Koffi Alain several advantages. Firstly, access to a programme for entrepreneurs in 2023, run by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, as well as two trophies, one from the Friedrich Naumann Foundation and another from the Atlantic International Business School (AIBS), enhanced with an envelope worth 1 million CFA francs (more than 1,500 euros).
The international final in November 2022 in Berlin
Kouamé Koffi Alain has also received a scholarship from the Noe Foundation for six months of incubation to modernise his process of transforming plastic waste into fuel.
Currently, his company produces 100 litres of fuel every four hours from five kilograms of plastic waste. The process used by Kouamé Koffi Alain is pyrolysis. This is a distillation process that turns plastic waste into fuel. When heated to over 400°C, the plastic waste is transformed into gas. Depending on the condensation (cooling) temperatures of this gas, different types of fuel are obtained, including petrol, gas oil (diesel), pyrolytic oil, gas that can be reused in combustion, etc.
Kouamé Koffi Alain wants to make this process more efficient, in order to produce a larger quantity of fuel while reducing the proliferation of plastic waste in nature. And the recognition obtained in this annual competition is a step towards this goal.
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In November 2022, Kouamé Koffi Alain will represent Ivory Coast in Berlin (Germany) for the international final of the Falling Walls Lab. This science and innovation mecca will bring together 100 inventors from around the world. Another showcase for the Ivorian entrepreneur in search of financing and notoriety.
Inès Magoum