Cetogenix
Converting organic biomass into energy, nutrients and bio-based products
Cetogenix is a New Zealand clean-tech startup that converts organic biomass from agriculture, industry, and food sectors into energy, nutrients and biobased products. Cetogenix is looking at ways to improve the efficiency of energy and nutrient returns from organic waste.
Challenge
Investment in anaerobic digestion (AD) systems has grown significantly in recent years, as Europe seeks to boost renewable gas production to ensure energy security and maintain low-carbon value chains. The primary feedstock for biomethane production in Europe is agricultural waste, such as manure and crop residues. As a result, thousands of AD plants are already operating in the agricultural sector of the Northern Hemisphere, where livestock is typically housed year-round, allowing for maximum manure collection. In New Zealand, however, less than 7% of manure is collected from dairy farms.
This has reduced the incentive for New Zealand farms to adopt anaerobic digestion for waste management or to create renewable alternatives to natural gas. Apart from the manure collection challenge in New Zealand, conventional AD systems face other difficulties. The most common feedstocks—manure and agri-residues like straw—are often low yielding in biogas productivity and can retain up to half of the methane potential in the form of undegraded residue (digestate). While the digestate contains valuable plant nutrients, their economic value is often unrealised because the bulky digestate is difficult to handle.
Solution
The Ceto-Boost™ technology, currently being developed by Cetogenix, processes anaerobic digestion digestate. It breaks down residual organic solids to produce an additional 20-40% biogas and concentrated nutrient fractions that can be stored, transported and used more economically. This technology is expected to lower digestate management costs and increase biogas yield, strengthening the value proposition for agricultural AD systems in New Zealand.
Cetogenix aim to establish green energy and nutrient hubs in New Zealand to convert agricultural and food industry waste into renewable biogas and green fertilisers. The goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from waste management, extract renewable biogas energy from waste materials, demonstrate improved waste processing with Ceto-Boost™, and replace fossil fuel derived fertilisers.
Impact Unlocked
Recent studies estimate New Zealand’s biogas potential from agricultural residues at around 24 PJ per year, double the total commercial and residential natural gas consumption. A typical dairy farm with 450 cows could produce 20,000 m³ of biomethane annually, twice the farm’s average transport fuel consumption. The Ceto-Boost™ process offers a way to replace synthetic nitrogen fertilisers with green alternatives from waste, reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Cetogenix’s scalable hubs could generate 10 PJ/year of renewable natural gas and 1,540 GWh/year of electricity, cutting New Zealand’s emissions by 3.76 Mt CO2e, about 5% of the nation’s total.
Ara Ake Contribution
Ara Ake is co-funding a crucial feasibility study for a South Waikato farming consortium that analyses the technical, economic, and environmental aspects of implementing AD systems. This support offers Cetogenix and its partners a strong foundation for their planning and investment decisions. Additionally, Ara Ake involvement lends credibility and objectivity to this opportunity, guiding investment choices for early adopters and encouraging broader engagement with advanced waste-to-renewable energy technology in New Zealand.