Investments worth over 150 mln euros in novel products

Nanotechnology, robotic technology, tire pyrolysis: Some of the sectors where projects worth millions are being launched in Greece. For this reason, the companies that plan to implement them seek to secure the status of strategic investments through the Enterprise Greece agency for their projects, which follow the circular economy and utilize new technologies.

One of them concerns the development of a plant for robotic technology and a research and development unit. The 91-million-euro project will be implemented at Karteri in Igoumenitsa by Atlas Robotics, whose managing director and co-founder is entrepreneur Gregg Nourjian. In the first phase, the company will seek to focus on the field of robotic diagnostic imaging, while there appears to be increased interest in the adoption of this technology by large medical groups.

Another project concerns the creation of the first factory in Greece for pyrolysis of tires at the end of their life cycle. It is a €44.5 million investment by German company Pyrum Innovations, which recycles used tires (at the end of their life cycle) with the technology of pyrolysis – i.e. the thermal solution of the chemical bonds of carbon without oxygen. Pyrum, which owns German chemical industry BASF and tire manufacturer Continental, and works with giants such as Michelin and Pirelli, is a leader in recycling tires and turning them into secondary raw materials of great utility for industry.

There is also the implementation of a processing unit for the production of innovative products from plankton that will be in liquid form and will be used as food for small fish. The plant planned by Plankton First (local subsidiary of Swiss firm Nano Algae Solutions), will include two sections. In Skarfeia, Fthiotida, where the first processing will take place with the production of biomass, and in the Industrial Area of Lamia, where products of high nutritional value such as oils, proteins and polysaccharides (double concentration) will be produced.

Another €15 million investment, for which an application is expected to be submitted to Enterprise Greece, includes the construction of a research and development center and a carbon fiber production unit based on nanotechnology.