Anaerobic digestion (AD) is a complex biotechnological process used to convert organic waste, such as food waste, unusable parts of plant crops and other farm-generated wastes as well as municipal wastewater into valuable biogas. Biogas is a renewable fuel with the potential to replace the natural gas necessary to heat our homes and power our industry.

However, as any biological process AD is difficult to manage. Changes in feedstock type and quality present risks and can lead to complete process failure, which causes substantial losses in revenue and energy production, Most of the AD plants in the UK are currently working at maximum 65% digestion efficiency.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, it became evident how important the AD industry is for managing organic waste disposal, but it also highlighted its limitations. Rapid changes in feedstocks during the crisis caused problems in AD plants, which resulted in high volumes of organic waste being sent to landfill or for incineration.

Carbogenics' flagship product CreChar absorbs harmful chemicals and enhances the adaptive capability of the microorganisms that reside in biogas reactors, thereby stabilising the AD process and increasing biogas production by 15%. We produce CreChar sustainably from difficult-to recycle paper- based waste such as food- contaminated cardboard boxes or waste paper cups. Our innovative product will enable the AD industry to deal with abrupt feedstock regime changes much better. CreChar will make the AD sector more resilient and allow it to effectively respond to waste management emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic, while also generating additional revenue of £200k/annum (for an average 1MGW plant). After its use in AD, our product can be safely deposited in soils, realising significant carbon savings.

Our Innovate UK project will initially focus on lab-based customisation of our CreChar product, followed by demonstration of its capability with an industrial partner in a full-scale trial. The project will accelerate CreChar's commercialisation, bringing our innovation to the market as early as 2021\. Our circular economy business will contribute to the decarbonisation of the economy, thereby helping to reach the UK's net zero CO2 emissions and zero waste targets by 2050\.