Manufacturing & Energy – IndieBio – #1 in Early Stage Biotech

Fermeate

Dmitry Paperny — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 18:17:09 +0000

Ceal

Dmitry Paperny — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 17:46:32 +0000

Ceal, a carbon dioxide removal (CDR) company, is paving the way for a Net-Zero environment using the most energy-efficient technology ready to scale.
Using its proprietary technology, Ceal’s innovative process utilizes the existing infrastructure of industrial facilities to provide the cheapest gigaton-scale CDR operation. The process is additive- and emission-free, and non-reliant upon the carbon market.
In a highly efficient single-step, Ceal captures and sequesters atmospheric CO2 dissolved in seawater into industry-essential minerals, while providing soft water for various uses. Thus, enabling major cost savings and substantial new revenues for its customers. Ceal’s solution reduces the carbon footprint of the industrial facility, its marine pollution of hazardous chemicals, and simplifies its operation.
Ceal – more than just carbon dioxide removal. We heal the world.

Carbon Bridge

Dmitry Paperny — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 20:29:49 +0000

Maritime shipping, aviation, and trucking will account for at least a tenth of global CO₂ emissions by 2030 and cannot be electrified anytime soon. To meet EU emissions standards, cargo operators are already ordering methanol-powered ships. However, green methanol is currently produced using energy-intensive processes, resulting in a greenish fuel that can’t compete with oil on price—which is key to rapid adoption.

CarbonBridge is developing a low-heat, low-pressure microbial process that upcycles carbon dioxide and methane into liquid methanol using a patent-pending bioreactor. Here’s the kicker: CarbonBridge can source those gasses inexpensively from over 16,000 US wastewater treatment facilities that normally burn them off. Easily stored and transported with existing fuel infrastructure, methanol can also be upgraded into aviation fuel, diesel, and plastics like polyurethane.

CarbonBridge was founded by entrepreneur Manu Pillai, engineer William Koutny, and biologist Sophia Xu. The company will decarbonize heavy transportation starting in 2025 by unlocking energy from plentiful wastewater feeds.

Bactery

Dmitry Paperny — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 20:29:41 +0000

The $10 billion precision agriculture industry is struggling to power the millions of sensors it needs to improve crop yields, reduce costs, and support food security amidst climate change. Farms are usually remote and lacking in energy infrastructure, but sensors reliant on single-use batteries or solar systems are prohibitively expensive because they require maintenance. Someone has to replace dead batteries and clean dust off the solar panels.

UK-based Bactery has developed a battery system that draws electricity from natural bacteria as they break down organics in agricultural soils, releasing electrons. In one year, a single Bactery can generate the amount of energy stored in ten AA batteries—double what a typical sensor requires. The low-profile device sits submerged almost entirely underground, safely out of the way, and requires no additional infrastructure or maintenance. Bactery calculates that its units, built to work for over 25 years, are 5,000 times less expensive than solar units over their lifetimes. And like solar, they generate zero carbon emissions during use.

Drs. Jakub Dziegielowski, Mirella Di Lorenzo, and Benjamin Metcalfe, co-founders of Bactery, have collaborated at the University of Bath for over five years and are considered the world’s top researchers in soil electricity generation. They’ve shown that a Bactery could, eventually, produce up to 4 watts per square meter of soil, promising a future where one-quarter of an average U.S. lot can power an entire home.