Innovation Spring 2025

Kedarnath Krishnankutty Nair, a process EIT with Convertus, helps oversee system processes at the Surrey facility. P hoto : S ubmitted by C onvertus G roup

convert those starches into bioethanol or butanol in bioreactors. Other systems aimed to create and capture methane from untreated wastewater using similar microorganisms. The next generation of secondary biofuels optimized bioreactors and starch sources. This, in turn, led to the commercialization of biofuel crops such as Jatropha, which is grown in sub-Saharan Africa. Jatropha offers a higher energy density than other crops grown in the region, allowing more fuel to be produced for the same volume of crop input.

“There is still one downside, and that is you need a very large area of land to produce crops or plant material that would then be converted to biofuels,” Adeel said. “So, the land-to-energy ratio has not been very good.” Using organic waste for biofuel Biofuel, however, can also be created using organic waste materials. Convertus Group sidesteps land use concerns associated with fuel-crop production by leveraging organic waste instead of using fuel crops to produce RNG.

Innovation Spring 2025

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