Team
Paul Dorrington – Chief Technical Officer
Paul manages the technical development activities for Aquaflow. He is a Chemical and Process Engineer whose experience covers a broad range of industries and roles. He has worked for large industrial employers in the paint and wood resin adhesives industries, in engineering consultancy as well as pump and equipment specification and sales. Paul has spent over ten years working in the natural products and nutraceutical industry setting up solvent extraction plants, establishing staffing and operating systems and standards, and working with customers to deliver products that meet their needs by undertaking product development. Immediately before joining Aquaflow Paul had set up the largest supercritical carbon dioxide extraction plant in the southern hemisphere. BEng 2.1 Hons (Chem) from Surrey University, UK.
Leith Pemberton – Chief Operations Officer
Leith has extensive experience in offshore project development, commercially developing new and emerging technologies. Leith has a degree in water resource/ environmental engineering.
Leith has worked on number of offshore projects involving agricultural waste and waste water development projects. Through his broad understanding of agricultural environmental issues, he developed a business approach that incorporates sustainable processes. This business approach has involved projects using technology which removes nitrate from point source wastewater systems and market support of Bio Digestor developments. The commercial development of a patented animal/human/industry effluent bio digestor modular system, can be used for generation of electrical supply and was suitable for remote locations.
Most recently, his work with Fonterra in China as project manager for a 3000 head confinement project, involved the integrated design of a composting animal bedding system utilising waste water nutrients from dairy wash down water as the mechanism to develop a sustainable local fertilizer for agricultural use.
Dr Ian Miller – Chief Chemist
Ian J. Miller BSc Hons (1), PhD, FNZIC in the 1970s was Head of Applied Chemistry, Chemistry Division, DSIR, and headed research into obtaining energy from biomass, and in recycling organic materials. In 1986, he left, to form a private research company, Carina Chemical Laboratories Ltd. Despite working in the private sector for most of his career, he has 100 peer reviewed scientific papers, many of which are sole authorship. These include a number of papers on pressure liquefaction of cellulose. Dr Miller has been a Director of two ICI companies, and the industrial work carried out by Dr Miller includes:
- Invention of a patented seaweed derived gel material which is the basis of several commercial products currently being sold in New Zealand, Australia, and the US.
- Invention of a number of processes to enhance the yield and quality of agar production, and processes for making agarose and agarose derivatives, some of which have been licensed to New Zealand industry.
- Promotion of a venture to make pyromellitates from durene. This project collapsed for legal reasons, but Dr Miller was a Director of the company undertaking a $4.5 million feasibility study.
- Invention of a solvent process and design of a pilot plant to separate and recycle plastics ten years before comparable work was published in the US.
