InterCement develops new, 100% biodegradable fertilizer from microalgae residue
Created in partnership with startup Algae, the fertilizer will be released on a small commercial scale at ABISOLO, on April 11th.
In order to continue helping to reduce the emission of pollutants in the environment, InterCement, in a partnership with startup Algae, developed a new, 100% biodegradable fertilized from microalgae residue. Called Cellagro, the product is estimated to be capable of generating 20 to 30% more fertility and also act as an imunostimulant on grains such as soy, corn and others. Cellagro will be released on a small market scale on April 11th at ABISOLO.
“We developed a concept of circular economy, with the objective of taking an effluent and value it until it becomes a product again. This project with microalgae is a pioneer in Brazil, and we want to advance and develop on a large scale in the next years”, says Sergio Goldemberg, director of Algae Biotecnologia.
In order to reach this process, InterCement invested about R$ 5.6 million in the first four years towards purchasing lab equipment, financing scholarships, building bioreactors on a pre-pilot scale and paying the involved researchers.
Researchers at InterCement developed a CO2 biofixation system using microalgae and cyanobacteria cultures. These microalgae are highly efficient in photosynthesis and can fixate CO2 with 10x greater capacity of absorption in the production of sugar cane, since all of its cells can photosynthesize.
Taking place in Holambra, in the countryside of São Paulo, using a 100m² area, the concept of the project is to use gas combustion from cement furnaces to cultivate microalgae in bioreactors. Even during low production, ever since its inception, the project eliminated about 60 kg of CO2 every month from the atmosphere to this day with microalgae experiments.
“InterCement is one of the companies that invest the most in efforts towards sustainability and to reduce carbon emissions. So we are work on several fronts that aim to reduce emissions by replacing fuel. One of these primary fonts, for example, is co-processing, in which we replace the oil bulk in the furnaces’ combustion with biomass”, says innovation director at InterCement, Carlos Massucato.
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