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About — the problems we solve.

If a feedstock is high-moisture, contaminated, or stranded somewhere central infrastructure doesn't reach, it eventually finds its way to us.

This is not a company-history page. The Biomass Controls brochure describes the product; this page describes the work — the categories of problems customers come to us with, what they do with the Biogenic Refinery to solve them, and the verifiable substrate behind the engineering claims.

The brief version of who we are sits at § 05, after the customer-problem orientation is in place. If you arrived here from a footer link looking for company facts, that section is the destination — but the page is organized so the work comes first.

150,000+
Operational hours
50+
Systems deployed
3
Continents
21 + 5
Patents issued · pending
§ 01 The problems we solve

Six categories of feedstock, six categories of pressure.

The problems that show up at our door fall into a small number of recurring categories. They differ in feedstock, geography, regulatory regime, and customer type, but they share a common shape: the operator has a material to deal with, the conventional disposal path is getting harder or more expensive, and the on-site recovery path needs equipment that is small enough to deploy, tolerant enough to run on the actual feedstock, and instrumented enough to produce a record someone downstream will accept.

01

Decentralized sanitation, where infrastructure doesn't reach

Fecal sludge, septage, and biosolids in low-resource or cold-climate contexts where centralized wastewater treatment is not available, not viable, or not cost-effective to extend. The problem is geography and population density making sewage infrastructure economically irrational. Arctic communities in Alaska, peri-urban settlements in India, off-grid industrial camps. The Biogenic Refinery's founding mission — under the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Reinvent the Toilet Challenge — was exactly this category.

02

Municipal biosolids, with disposal pressure

Wastewater treatment plants facing rising disposal costs from a combination of land-application restrictions (PFAS rules, soil-loading limits, nutrient-management plans), landfill bans on biosolids in certain jurisdictions, and incineration capacity tightening in others. The pressure is regulatory and financial. The Refinery converts the stream into pathogen-inactivated biochar and recoverable thermal energy — typically around 90% volume reduction.

03

Livestock manure, with nutrient and emissions pressure

Dairy, hog, and beef operations facing nutrient-management constraints, odor complaints, neighbor pressure, and on-farm greenhouse-gas accounting requirements from buyers and lenders. The Refinery converts manure solids into biochar, recovers thermal energy that can offset farm propane or diesel use, and produces a KELV°N operating record that supports the on-farm sustainability disclosure customers and lenders are starting to ask for.

04

Food and packaging waste, with pathogen and volume pressure

Food-processing residues, end-of-shelf products, absorbent hygiene products, compostable packaging that does not actually compost in real-world systems, contaminated cardboard. The pressure is volume, pathogen control, and disposal-cost compounding. The Refinery pyrolyzes the qualified portion under controlled, oxygen-limited conditions; pathogen inactivation is a process consequence of the temperature regime, not a separate stage.

05

Agricultural and industrial biogenic residues

Spent mushroom substrate, specialty crop wastes, food-processing byproducts, low-grade fiber streams, char from upstream thermal processes that can be reprocessed for improved carbon durability. The shared characteristic is on-site availability without a clear off-site market — the Refinery turns these into a usable output where transport-and-sell economics don't work.

06

Carbon-removal project documentation

Biochar carbon-removal project developers who need not just the biochar but the operating record, the LCA/TEA basis, and the methodology fit to certify the project under Puro.earth, EBC, Verra VM0044, Climate Action Reserve, or the EU CRCF. The Refinery contributes the production equipment and the KELV°N data record; certification decisions remain with registries and certification bodies. See what we contribute against each methodology →

§ 02 What customers do with the Biogenic Refinery

Outcomes, not feature lists.

Across the six problem categories above, the same Biogenic Refinery is doing the same kinds of work. The outcomes — what the operator actually gets — fall into four categories.

Volume reduction and disposal-cost relief

Typically around 90%, and up to 95% depending on feedstock and moisture. The operator's tipping fees, transport costs, and downstream disposal-volume contracts shrink in proportion.

This is the most consistent outcome across deployments and the most legible to a CFO or municipal budget owner.

Recoverable thermal energy

Forced-air or hot-water output that closes the drying loop, drives upstream process heat, or — at the larger model lines — feeds an Organic Rankine Cycle for on-site electrical generation.

Whether this matters to the operator depends on the site: a wastewater plant uses it for sludge drying; an Alaska industrial camp uses it for facility heating; a dairy uses it for grain drying or barn ventilation. Same energy, project-specific use case.

Pathogen-inactivated biochar

The solid output is a stable, porous, biogenic carbon. End-use possibilities — soil amendment, filtration media, construction-material additive, durable carbon storage — depend on characterization, regulation, and intended application.

The Refinery produces biochar; what the customer does with it is part of the project scoping conversation, not a default assumption.

A verifiable operating record

Every run is captured by KELV°N — Biomass Controls' operating-record platform — and the data record is what carbon-removal registries, regulators, lenders, sustainability auditors, and corporate offtakers actually need.

Whether the operating record is consumed for carbon-credit certification, regulatory reporting, on-farm GHG accounting, or institutional sustainability disclosure depends on the customer; the record is the same.

§ 03 Where the deployments are

Three continents, organized by problem.

Across the deployment record, the geography sorts roughly by the problem category — different regions bring different pressures to the Refinery.

The full deployment record — by country, year, partner, and feedstock context — is on /field-record/. The deployments that can be named publicly are listed there; deployments under confidentiality are reflected in the operating-hour and systems-deployed counts but are not named.

§ 04 The verifiable substrate

External, reproducible, and externally checked.

The engineering claims behind the Biogenic Refinery are not proprietary assertions. Three external anchors make the claims independently checkable.

01 · Peer-reviewed publications

Authored and externally studied.

Biomass Controls work has been studied and published in Water Research, ACS Environmental Au, Cleaner Environmental Systems, Journal of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Development, and others, in collaboration with university and NGO research partners.

The 2022 ACS Environmental Au publication (Rowles et al., including Hallowell) is the peer-reviewed LCA/TEA basis used in carbon-removal framework scoping. See the full publication list →

02 · Patent portfolio

21 issued, 5 pending.

Covering controls and emissions architecture, data architecture, deployment configurations, and related domains across US, EU, AU, CA, and other jurisdictions.

The portfolio is described in detail on the Patents page, including the claim-area breakdown and the competitive-positioning context. See the patent portfolio →

03 · ISO 31800:2020

Active standards contribution.

Faecal sludge treatment units — Energy independent, prefabricated, community-scale, resource recovery units — Safety and performance requirements.

Developed under ISO/TC 224 with technical contribution from Jeff Hallowell of Biomass Controls PBC. ISO 31800:2020 is the operational reference standard the Biogenic Refinery's sanitation-context deployments are designed against.

The combination — independent peer-reviewed research, issued patents in major jurisdictions, technical contribution to an active ISO standard — is the verifiable substrate behind the company's claims. None of it replaces project-specific scoping; all of it makes that scoping more credible.

§ 05 Who we are, briefly

A Public Benefit Corporation in Woodstock, Connecticut.

Biomass Controls PBC is incorporated as a Public Benefit Corporation, founded in 2015 in Connecticut as part of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Reinvent the Toilet Challenge. The technology was in field operation from 2014.

The company operates from a single engineering and manufacturing facility in Woodstock, Connecticut, where systems are designed, assembled, commissioned, and tested before field deployment. Field operations are supported by the same engineering team that designs the systems; there is no separate field-engineering subsidiary and no offshore support center. Site visits to the Woodstock facility are available by appointment.

Our promise to the operator Every system we deliver is engineered, modeled, and supported by people who treat your feedstock as the starting point — not an afterthought. We don't ship a fixed throughput rating; we deliver a system that's right for the resource you have.

The operational expression of that promise — how we size, what feedstocks we accept, how the operating record is structured, what we contribute against carbon-removal frameworks — lives on the operational pages:

§ 06 How to engage

The substantive way to start.

If you're sizing a project, working under a carbon-removal methodology, or trying to understand whether the Biogenic Refinery is right for your context, the inquiry form is the substantive way to start. The form routes to info@biomasscontrols.com — the shared engineering and sales inbox. Partial submissions are welcome.

Start a conversation Email directly →

For research collaboration, media inquiries, or industry conversations: same inbox, same form, just note the path on submission. Conference and event presence is posted on LinkedIn.