The Zero-waste option: Blue Marble Biomaterials

In Montana, Blue Marble Biomaterials released more details on how their Missoula facility achieves zero-waste.  Measures to do this include recycling nearly 100% of their water, saving over 26,000 gallons per month, returning it to their biochemical fermentation and algae remediation systems.  The reverse osmosis system also separates the biochemicals from the water, reducing the energy needed to distill and refine the biochemicals.

They also recycle their biogas, removing NOx and SOx, run the resultant biogas through an algal photobioreactor to remove CO2 and methane, and what’s left is sent through a pyrolysis and gasification unit to become oil.  What little sold waste biomass that remains are processed either for the flavor and fragrance industry, or run through the gasification and pyrolysis reactors.