*This is one in a series of feature articles about companies that received SBIR/STTR funding and matching funds from Launch Tennessee. Companies that have received this funding will be highlighted at this year’s upcoming Innovation Week, Feb. 24-28. Mark your calendars!
Company: Glanris
Name and title: CEO Bryan Eagle
Location: Memphis
The amount of agricultural and forest waste in Tennessee and the surrounding states is “staggering,” Glanris CEO Bryan Eagle said. And much of this waste “is either burned in the fields or dumped in landfills, neither of which are environmentally friendly.”
Enter Glanris, which is working to turn that waste into biocarbon.
Biocarbon is carbon that comes from living things, like plants and animals, and can be used to create biochar, a special kind of charcoal added to soil to help plants grow better.
With the help of Launch Tennessee, Glanris recently received funding from the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, plus additional matching funds from LaunchTN.
The company also has plans to open a new plant in 2025 to expand production.
We caught up with Eagle to hear more about what his Memphis-based company has going on.
Q: What makes your work special?
A: Biochar is really very exciting … with lots of benefits. We help solve a waste problem in a way that removes CO2 from the carbon cycle and sequesters it for thousands of years.
But there are other benefits:
— The heat from the process creates renewable and distributed electricity that is generated when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing.
— The biocarbon produced is used to help decarbonize other industries as it can be used in plastics, water filtration, steel, concrete and as a soil amendment.
— The technology is low cost, around $150 per CO2e sequestered at low volumes, under $100 at high volumes.
— The tech is ready today and people are scaling up now, not 15 years from now. It can be deployed globally anywhere there is ag waste.
Q: How will you use your SBIR funding? What’s the first thing you’re going to spend it on?
A: We will use this funding to complete some final testing on Walnut shell biochar. In lab testing, it had 6 times the surface area of our initial biocarbon, rice hulls which means it can absorb 6 times the contaminants (in the case of water filtration) or hold 6 times the nitrogen and phosphates as a fertilizer.
Q: Tell us about a recent success that you’re particularly proud of.
A: We just received the final term sheets for our Series A funding, which will allow us to ramp up production.
Q: What advice would you give to someone in the position you were in a year ago?
A: Never give up, never surrender.
Q: How have you benefited from working with Launch Tennessee?
A: LaunchTN’s funding came at just the right time for us to finish the research on new biomass material that improves the capacity to hold contaminants.
Q: What are your long-term goals for your company/research?
A: … We have potential applications in tire production (rice hull and rice stalk biochar), PFAS removal (modified cannabis waste biochar), plastics (woody-based biochar) battery anodes for electric cars (almond shells biochar). We just need the research dollars and commercialization partners.
Q: What do you listen to while you’re working?
A: Radio Paradise streaming internet radio (https://radioparadise.com/home0)