Investment Notes: Bygen

Investible’s Climate Tech Fund invested in Bygen’s AUD $2.6m capital raise alongside Breakthrough Victoria, Alberts Impact Ventures, Artesian and Startmate. This marks the 23rd investment from the Climate Tech Fund.

While there are many emerging solutions looking to process biomass waste, ranging from animal feed, biochar, anaerobic digestion and more, many result in the creation of relatively low-value products also reliant on the economic benefits associated with capturing CO2.

However, activated carbon (or activated charcoal), that has been treated to increase its adsorptive power by significantly increasing its internal porosity, commands a far higher price per tonne — and has the potential to be far more sustainable.

It also targets a much larger global market, with activated carbon being a widely used material in a vast array of different applications, including water treatment, gold recovery, PFAS remediation and soil remediation.

In these investment notes, we will detail through our conviction in Bygen and PhD researcher turned founder, Dr Lewis Dunnigan.

High margin output from capturing CO2

Bygen have developed a novel technology called ‘low-temperature activation’ or LTA that can convert carbon-rich materials (like nut shells and wood) into activated carbon. The machinery optimises the manufacturing process across two key stages — pyrolysis and activated carbon generation — improving overall energy efficiency and reducing the number of harmful emissions typically released.

Traditionally the production of activated carbon is an endothermic reaction, requiring the constant heating of charcoal to extremely high temperatures, using steam at 1,000 °C. Bygen’s activation process is exothermic, and therefore does not require an input of energy/heat into the process during continuous operation. Instead, the process uses a proprietary mixture of gases that can be applied at much lower temperatures to the charcoal. Additionally, hot gases produced as a byproduct of Bygen’s activated carbon production can be captured and turned into energy for use elsewhere.

Bygen’s technology takes waste, traditionally valued anywhere between $30-$40/t and increases it to $3000/t resulting in a 100x increase in value. For waste producers across multiple verticals, including nut shells, wood and more, they can participate in a carbon negative value-generating production process and create an additional revenue stream.

The technology is up, running (and sequestering)

While at a smaller scale than Bygen’s long-term ambitions, Bygen’s technology is up-and-running at a scale that sees them on-selling their activated carbon through offtake contacts. The development of larger scale projects is underway with a variety of partners here in Australia, and overseas. Their current largest plant to date, which can process around 350 kilograms per hour of input materials, has been built and is going through final validation stages. They are also imminently about to begin construction of their next scale up stage, which will see a plant capable of processing around 1.5 tonnes per hour of input materials deployed later this year.

PhD turned commercial founders

Bygen is led by Dr Lewis Dunnigan, who received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Adelaide prior to founding Bygen. Lewis has participated in published research across the production of biochar from risk husk, explored temperature effects on pyrolysis, emission characteristics of biochar production from agricultural wastes and a whole lot more. Lewis has successfully made the transition from researcher to CEO and has demonstrated strong entrepreneurial qualities in the time we have known him.

Alongside Lewis is CCO Cameron Griffiths, who brings almost 20 years of sales experience across wastewater treatment and other industrial applications. Bygen are hiring another process technical salesperson, so keep your eyes peeled.

The Investible team is delighted to have made our investment in Bygen, and we look forward to supporting Lewis and the team on their pursuit of transforming atmospheric carbon into high-value products around the globe.