MINNEAPOLIS – Biogenic Reagents, a new producer of high-value carbon products from renewable biomass, has completed construction and initiated commercial production at its $30 million facility in Marquette. The company’s leadership team of clean-tech industry experts developed and advanced a platform technology to create proprietary renewable carbon products that cost less and perform better than existing coal-based products.


The company’s flagship production facility is creating more than 40 direct jobs –with military veterans filling more than one-third of those jobs – and is projected to create and support more than 100 jobs in the local forestry, wood products, transportation and construction industries. 


Initial products include activated carbon with applications for air and water purification and control of mercury and other emissions from power plants.


Unlike most activated carbon products for mercury control that are made from coal, Biogenic Reagents’ products are derived from renewable biomass. Biomass not only is renewable and costs less than coal, it contains significantly less ash and other contaminants than coal-based products.
According to blind side-by-side trials conducted by researchers at Stanford University’s Clean Energy Conversions Lab and recent full-scale trials at a Michigan utility, Biogenic Reagents’ mercury control product has demonstrated the ability to reduce mercury emissions from a coal-fired power plant by more than 90 percent.
“Based on our knowledge and experience with mercury emissions and how to best control them, we believed there was an opportunity to introduce a lower cost and higher performing product into the marketplace,” said Biogenic Reagents CEO Jim Mennell. “The results of third-party studies and commercial-scale trials now validate that belief.”


Because of its innovative design focus on materials and energy recovery, Biogenic Reagents’ process has a small environmental footprint, producing no wastewater, and generating air emissions that are less than one-tenth of a typical biomass energy plant of comparable size.


“The design allows us to win twice—because we lose less of our feedstock as waste, we achieve a very high yield, and we minimize environmental impacts,” said Mennell. “To our knowledge, Biogenic Reagents is producing the lowest life-cycle environmental impact carbon products on the planet.”


For more information, visit BiogenicReagents.com. To reach a company sales representative, contact info@biogenicreagents.com.
