Ammonia Recovery System

The ARS is Bion’s patented core technology. It captures the ammonia released when methane is produced from organic waste in an anaerobic digester (AD). Ammonia is volatile, reactive, and mobile. Without control, most escapes to the environment – a loss of resource value and now recognized as a significant source of air and water pollution.

Once the ammonia is isolated in the ARS, it is stabilized with CO2 that is also in the waste stream, preventing both from being released into the environment. And it allows us to recover unique high-value nitrogen fertilizers that are immediately-available, organic, low-carbon, and transportable, so they can now be precision applied, when and where needed.

Anaerobic Digestion is used worldwide to produce biogas from organic waste streams of all kinds: manure; industrial sources, including slaughter/ packing, food and food processing; and municipal wastewater. Bion’s latest patent broadened the ARS coverage beyond animal waste to include industrial and municipal waste streams.

The ARS is also the foundation of Bion’s Gen3Tech platform, that can provide comprehensive environmental treatment and resource recovery for large-scale livestock production. 

Gen3Tech Platform

Bion’s Gen3Tech platform integrates several systems and processes into a state-of-the-art livestock finishing facility that improves animal health and production efficiencies, while minimizing environmental impacts.

Improving efficiencies and economics in the beef industry starts with moving cattle from traditional outdoor feedlots into indoor barns. Barns protect the animals from harsh weather, improve production, and allow continuous waste collection and treatment. Dairy, poultry, and swine are largely produced indoors already, with continuous manure removal and collection in place.

The waste quickly enters the closed-loop resource recovery platform where it undergoes a variety of biological, thermal and mechanical processes. First is anaerobic digestion (AD), where methane (biogas) is produced. The AD discharge is then treated in the Ammonia Recovery System, that harvests the ammonia and carbon dioxide, as described above.

Bion Patents

Patent No. Claims Expiration
11858823
C: Expands claims beyond animal waste; specifically, to industrial and municipal waste
9/14/2035
11254581
CIP: Additional recovery methods that improve efficiencies and reduce costs
9/14/2035
10793458
C: Significantly stronger coverage of ammonia recovery technology
9/14/2035
10604432
CIP: Broader protections to cover technology platform improvements
6/29/2037
10106447
Process to recover ammonium carbonate/ ammonium bicarbonate from wastewater
9/14/2035
8287734
Method for treating nitrogen in waste streams; original Gen 2 patent (Jere Northrop, et al)
3/20/2031