A woman from Newcastle Emlyn is one of 50 winners of the Innovate UK’s Women in Innovation Award.

Lorna Anguilano (pictured) and her company Phyona have secured £50,000 in funding, as well as one to one mentorship and access to a range of networking, training and role modelling courses.

Ms Anguilano’s company extracts valuable metal nanoparticles from plants called hyperaccumulators.

Ms Anguilano explained how they do this, saying: “There are some plants called hyperaccumulators that act upon their environment in order to make their roots cleaner from contaminants.

“They absorb metals and minerals, change their composition and distribute them up into their leaves.

“We harvest these plants, the little miners as we call them, and extract nanoparticle metals and minerals from them. We then convert these metals and minerals into a form that the industry requires.

“If they want an oxide mineral, we’ll convert it into an oxide, if not, we’ll convert it into a metal.

“These nanoparticles are highly valuable. If you take copper for an example, copper will sell for so many pounds, but copper nanoparticles would be worth a hundred times more.

“Nanoparticles are much more valuable because of how and where they are used industrially, such as in the electronics of our mobile phones, solar panels and so on.

“They are also very expensive to produce. They take a lot of energy to be produced from the pure metals they’re found in. Some of the metals we look to extract are lithium and cobalt, which are used in batteries.

“They are commonly mined in places like South America, with many ethical implications.

“Mining them uses a substantial amount of water in the process, leaving many areas dry.

“Although a contaminated site wouldn’t have the same raw minerals as a mine, it is a much more ethical way of obtaining these nanoparticle metals.”

As well as extracting valuable metal nanoparticles, the process also clears contamination from the environment. Ms Anguilano takes pride in using plants which align with the local biodiversity of the area they are working in, to make sure the introduction of the plants doesn’t upset the balance.

Ms Anguilano said: “Our company uses local plants as much as possible, so that we don’t create a landscape that unbalances the local ecosystem.

Winning the Innovation award will open many doors for Ms Anguilano and her company. Ms Anguilano hopes it will also allow her to inspire women to take up the study of engineering.

Ms Anguilano said: “Winning the award is going to be a great asset for us. First of all, it will allow us to upscale and work with bigger gardens.

“The mentorship possibility is a great opportunity to allow us to grow our business, to improve our model, logistics and supply chain.

“I’m excited about the opportunity to be a role model too. I studied engineering and work in a university currently, and I want to show young women that anything is possible.

“Women don’t often see themselves in courses such as engineering.

“Engineering is a very male filled course, and that can make women scared.

“I want to say ‘look it’s safe, you can do it’ and I think that’s really important.”