SusBioME, an emerging greentech start-up, has been named as the overall winner of the 2024 UCD VentureLaunch Accelerator Programme.
SusBioME is developing technology for use in the anaerobic digestion process to increase renewable gas yields from biomass.
The annual VentureLaunch Programme, run by NovaUCD, aims to support the creation and launch of sustainable and profitable new start-ups emerging from University College Dublin (UCD).
The members of the SusBioME team are Dr Ajay Menon, who completed the VentureLaunch Accelerator Programme, Professor James Lyng, Norman Maloney and Bernie Fitzpatrick.
The start-up from the UCD School of Agriculture and Food Science, is developing modular, plug-in disruptive electro-processing technologies to make feedstocks more biodigestible. As a platform technology it can be applied to a wide range of feedstocks and bioprocesses.
By the direct applications of electric fields, the SusBioME technology physically disrupts feedstocks, which rapidly and very efficiently make them more biodigestible leading to gas yield improvements of up to 30% for renewable gas producers along with reduced operational costs and increased revenues.
"Everyone knows why renewable energy is important, but few know how much of it is sourced from biomass. Last year, 59% of the EU's renewable energy came from biomass-based bioenergy, more than wind, solar and hydro combined," Dr Ajay Menon said.
"Renewable gas, made using anaerobic digestion, is the most promising and important kind of bioenergy and is a huge and growing industry," he said.
"However, a major bottleneck in the process is that the feedstock cannot be digested very well leading to unrealised gas yields. The SusBioME technology which we have successfully trialled addresses this issue and results in gas yield improvements of up to 30%, an important development for the sector," he added.
He said the start-up is currently half-way through its Enterprise Ireland Commercialistion Fund project, and it already has three trial partners secured for pilot demonstrations.
"In 2025 we intend to spin-out of UCD, raise some €500k in pre-seed funding and commercially launch SusBioME," he added.
The other participants on this year's VentureLaunch Accelerator programme in addition to SusBioME were GalMAX Biotech, Maternitec, Mirror Security, Neuropause Medical, Real World Data, and WeiSyn.
SusBioME, Neuropause Medical and WeiSyn are currently being supported through the Enterprise Ireland Commercialisation Fund.
