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In an article dated 1 May 2008 published by CNPlus, the on line newsletter of Construction news in the UK and that has also appeared in a feed to aggregateresearch.com, it was reported that a Dr Chris Cheeseman of Imperial College London claimed he had invented a new carbonating magnesium oxide cement. The offending articles are available at http://www.tececo.com/rdandd.thirdparty.php as links in the text on that page.

TecEco utterly reject the contents of the news story as being a total misrepresentation of the truth.

According to the report "while carrying out research on one such compound the Imperial team stumbled upon the fact that the resulting cement also absorbed further CO2 from the atmosphere as it hardened." TecEco achieved the development of Eco-Cements (our name for exactly the same cement) some years ago and we have many exemplars. There is even a building in the UK made with the same carbonating magnesium cements supplied by us that "hardened" in the manner described.

It would seem that the only thing the researchers at Imperial College have stumbled over is the truth. John Harrison, the managing director of TecEco invented Eco-cements in 1999 and lodged a PCT to cover them in 2001. Eco-Cements are magnesium oxide hydraulic cement blends that in permeable substrates harden by taking up CO2 and water from the air and this is exactly what Dr Cheeseman is now claiming he has invented.

That John Harrison of TecEco invented these new carbonating magnesium cements has been widely reported by the media around the world, the first major story being by Fred Pierce who wrote "Green Foundations", published in New Scientist Magazine, vol 175 issue 2351, p38 on the 13th July, 2002. Further media reports confirming Mr Harrison's invention are available at http://www.tececo.com/media.php.

Archives of the TecEco web site describing cements that match Dr Cheeseman’s so called discoveries are also available on web archives of TecEco going back for many years.

Dr Cheeseman telephoned Mr Harrison on the 8th May 2008 and claimed that the report was incorrect and not his doing. This excuse has not been confirmed by Mr Alasdair Reisner the publisher who states that Dr Cheeseman made it clear to him that his team had invented something new. As Dr Cheeseman has had little experience with TecEco cements and not collaborated with us and as our patents and formulation know how both have very wide relevance we do not believe anything new or that we have not anticipated has been invented by him or his team. As for some time authors from the BRE, Imperial College and Cambridge university have been doing their best to discredit Mr Harrison and the TecEco technology in the last few years we assume the agenda all along has been to take control of this very important technology. This ugly scenario is further described on the TecEco web site. (See RD&D/ThirdPartyResearch)

TecEco surmise that Dr Cheeseman's misrepresenation appears to be a ploy to attract funding and we further therefore comment that systems that force academics to be fiercely competitive in a commercial world they have little understanding of is bringing out the worst in them and that if we are to solve the urgent problem of global warming a much more collaborative approach is required.

As the true inventor Mr Harrison is aggrieved by Dr Cheeseman claims, particularly so as he met Dr Cheeseman in 2003 and 2004 and described the TecEco innovation to him and at conferences he attended. Dr Cheeseman was further given samples of porous (and thus permeable) carbonating magnesium cements by Mr Harrison during this period. Indeed Dr Cheeseman and John Harrison our managing director have corresponded about the cements. Understandably John Harrison is now very angry that Dr Cheeseman is claiming he has invented them.

As the new Imperial College spin off company to develop the cements is called Novacem and Nova suggests "new" and after discussion with Alasdair Reisner of CNPlus the orginator of the story, TecEco do not believe Dr Cheeseman's later claims that he was not trying to claim credit for the invention of the cements invented by Mr Harrison and that CNPlus had not reported him correctly. TecEco therefore warn him and others that they cannot reinvent history and Mr Harrison reserves his options to take further action if necessary in relation to the misrepresentation.

TecEco also will be writing to the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills Technology Strategy Board who are funding Dr Cheeseman and the Rector of Imperial College regarding Dr Cheesman's misrepresentation as our board take Dr Cheeseman's gross misrepresentation very seriously.

As of the 9th May 2008 TecEco are waiting on complete written retraction that has been promised and when this arrives it will be published by us.