The Revolutionary Know-how Behind Solein®

Photo voltaic Meals’ Manufacturing unit 01 in Finland produces Solein® protein from air molecules utilizing chemosynthesis microbes. 20x extra environment friendly than photosynthesis, no farms wanted. Industrial protein manufacturing from literal air is now actuality.

For the primary time in human historical past, we’re producing business portions of protein with out farms, with out animals, and with out even crops. Photo voltaic Meals has moved past principle and pilot packages — their Manufacturing unit 01 in Finland is actively utilising air molecules to develop nutritious protein powder via a technological platform that seems like science fiction however operates like clockwork.

This protein comes within the type of Solein®, a revolutionary golden-yellow protein powder that is 80% protein with all important amino acids, produced by naturally-occurring microbes that actually eat air. We not too long ago sat down with Photo voltaic Meals’ group in our podcast episode #175 to debate how this ingredient is already showing in merchandise from ice cream to protein bars.

Whereas our earlier protection of Solein® (linked above) explored the completed ingredient and its spectacular dietary profile, right now we’re pulling again the curtain on how this exceptional feat is achieved.

The expertise entails two equally fascinating elements: a fuel fermentation platform that feeds microbes with literal air, and an historical Nordic microorganism that performs chemosynthesis. It is a organic course of that is 20 instances extra environment friendly than the photosynthesis powering all present meals manufacturing. Join PricePlow’s Photo voltaic Meals information alerts to remain up to date, after which let’s get into the technical particulars:

The Twin Know-how Platform: {Hardware} Meets Historic Biology

Photo voltaic Meals’ breakthrough is not only one innovation, it is the wedding of cutting-edge bioprocess engineering with microorganisms which have been perfecting their craft for hundreds of thousands of years. Understanding each elements reveals why this expertise can succeed the place others have solely theorized:

Fuel Fermentation: The Industrial Revolution of Protein

The {hardware} aspect of Solein® manufacturing facilities on fuel fermentation — a course of that feeds microbes with gases as a substitute of agricultural sugars. The Photo voltaic Meals group describes it completely: “It is like a soda stream as a result of we inject principally the gases in in order that the microbe can eat.”

The method begins with water electrolysis, the place renewable electrical energy splits H₂O into hydrogen and oxygen gases.^[1] This is not simply in textbooks: Manufacturing unit 01’s on-site electrolyzer operates constantly, producing the hydrogen that serves as the first power supply for the microbes.

The Fuel Eating regimen That Feeds Protein Manufacturing

Inside 20,000-liter bioreactors, the microbes eat a exactly balanced fuel combination:

• Carbon dioxide (captured immediately from air or industrial sources)
• Hydrogen (from water electrolysis)
• Oxygen (additionally from electrolysis)

The everyday fuel ratio maintains CO₂:O₂:H₂ at 1:2:7 volumetric proportions, creating optimum circumstances for microbial protein synthesis.^[1] The microbes additionally obtain important minerals together with nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur, iron, and different hint components — the identical vitamins crops take in via their roots, however as a substitute delivered with pharmaceutical precision.

Chemosynthesis: Nature’s Different to Photosynthesis

Whereas the fermentation {hardware} impresses, the true magic occurs on the mobile degree via chemosynthesis, which is a organic pathway that predates photosynthesis and operates with gorgeous effectivity. As a substitute of utilizing daylight like crops do, these microbes generate power by breaking chemical bonds in hydrogen fuel, then use that power to transform CO₂ into proteins and different natural compounds.

Finnish firm Photo voltaic Meals simply made protein powder from literal air! Solein® makes use of microbes that eat hydrogen + CO2 to provide 78% protein with all important amino acids. It is also already GRAS self-affirmed and in manufacturing.

The Finnish Microbe Discovery

The star of this present is a naturally occurring hydrogen-oxidizing bacterium found in Finland’s pristine setting. These non-GMO microbes from the Xanthobacter genus have developed over hundreds of thousands of years to thrive by oxidizing hydrogen fuel for power.^[2]

As Susanna Mäkinen, Head of Biology at Photo voltaic Meals, explains: “The microbe on the coronary heart of Solein®’s story was plucked from the wealthy biodiversity of Finland’s nature. Little did it know that it might be the ancestor of trillions of comparable yellow cells.”

How Chemosynthesis Outperforms Photosynthesis

Not like crops that want daylight, Solein®’s chemosynthesis-performing microbes oxidize hydrogen molecules to launch power that powers CO₂ fixation into natural compounds.^[3] This course of achieves CO₂ discount efficiencies that exceed pure photosynthesis, working 24/7 no matter climate or season.

The effectivity benefit is staggering: these microbes reveal many instances increased effectivity than pure photosynthesis and roughly 200 instances extra effectivity than meat manufacturing.^[4] That is the way forward for meals effectivity, and it is already right here in operation.

Manufacturing unit 01: The place Concept Turns into Industrial Actuality

Positioned in Vantaa, Finland (simply north of Helsinki), Manufacturing unit 01 is not a pilot plant. It is a totally operational business manufacturing facility that launched in April 2024, proving that air-to-protein expertise works at industrial scale.

Manufacturing Capability That Delivers

The ability’s specs reveal critical business intent:

• Day by day manufacturing: 450kg of Solein® powder
• Annual capability: 160 tons
• Bioreactor quantity: 20,000 liters for the principle manufacturing vessel
• Manufacturing cycle: Steady 70-hour fermentation cycles
• Operational schedule: three hundred and sixty five days per 12 months

This steady manufacturing mannequin means “daily is a harvest day”, as Photo voltaic Meals describes it. That is in stark distinction to seasonal agricultural cycles that dominate conventional protein manufacturing.

Renewable Power: The Energy Behind the Course of

Manufacturing unit 01’s dedication to sustainability extends past the manufacturing technique itself. The ability integrates a number of renewable applied sciences:

• On-Website Electrolysis

  The ability homes alkaline electrolysis items that obtain industry-leading system efficiencies. These items produce hydrogen and oxygen immediately, eliminating the necessity for fuel transportation and storage whereas sustaining exact management over fuel purity and availability.

• Direct Air Seize Integration

  Extremely, Manufacturing unit 01 incorporates Direct Air Seize (DAC) expertise to supply CO₂ immediately from the ambiance.^[1] Utilizing amine-based sorbents that seize and focus atmospheric CO₂, this technique can obtain purity ranges exceeding 99.99% whereas working on renewable power.

The DAC system requires roughly 1.8-2.5 kWh of electrical energy and 0.35-0.45 kWh of thermal power per kilogram of captured CO₂.^[1] When powered by renewable sources, this creates a carbon-neutral — and even carbon-damaging — protein manufacturing cycle.

It is price noting that Manufacturing unit 01 at the moment makes use of a hybrid strategy for CO₂ sourcing — combining DAC expertise with liquid CO₂ to check each methods. As Photo voltaic Meals scales to future factories, they’re going to have flexibility in CO₂ sourcing, doubtlessly using industrial aspect streams so long as they meet inexperienced, clear, and food-grade requirements. This adaptability ensures the expertise can leverage essentially the most sustainable and cost-effective CO₂ sources accessible at any given location.

Automation and Monitoring

All the course of operates underneath refined automation, controllable from a central monitoring room and even remotely. Temperature, pH, fuel concentrations, and nutrient ranges are constantly monitored and adjusted, guaranteeing constant product high quality that agricultural methods cannot match.

Effectivity Metrics That Redefine What’s Potential

The numbers behind Solein® manufacturing problem every thing we thought we knew about protein manufacturing effectivity.

Pace of Manufacturing

Conventional protein sources measure manufacturing cycles in months or years:

• Spring wheat: 100-130 days to reap
• Winter wheat: 180-250 days
• Egg-laying hens: 5 months earlier than manufacturing begins
• Solein®: 70 hours (~3 days) from begin to harvest

This fast turnaround permits Manufacturing unit 01’s bioreactor to provide the identical day by day protein output as 300 dairy cows or 50,000 egg-laying chickens… with out the land, water, or environmental affect.

Useful resource Utilization

The effectivity extends to each enter:

• Power requirement: 18-30 kWh per kilogram of ultimate biomass^[1]
• Hydrogen conversion effectivity: Over 90%^[1]
• Water utilization: Primarily recycled inside the system
• Land requirement: Manufacturing unit footprint solely — no agricultural acreage

Biomass vs. Precision Fermentation Effectivity

It is essential to know that Solein® makes use of biomass fermentation, the place the microbes themselves turn into the product after pasteurization and drying. This eliminates the complicated genetic manipulation and processing required by precision fermentation, the place engineered organisms produce particular proteins that should be separated and purified. All the microbial biomass is harvested, making it a extra environment friendly and waste-free course of — and it is a non-GMO course of.

Scalability With out Geographic Limits

The expertise’s independence from conventional agricultural constraints opens potentialities that appeared not possible simply years in the past.

The New World Meals Map

Photo voltaic Meals envisions an entire reimagining of world meals manufacturing geography. Conventional breadbasket areas just like the American Midwest or Southeast Asian rice paddies arose from agricultural requirements — fertile soil, satisfactory rainfall, and average climates. However Solein® manufacturing flips this paradigm completely.

Take into account Chile’s Atacama Desert, one of many driest locations on Earth the place Photo voltaic Meals’ VP Arttu Luukanen not too long ago visited. Whereas inhospitable to conventional agriculture, the Atacama represents a future protein hub because of Chile’s renewable power potential from photo voltaic, wind, and geothermal sources. The nation’s formidable carbon neutrality objectives and educated workforce make it supreme for next-generation meals manufacturing… not regardless of being a desert, however as a result of it gives huge areas for renewable power technology with out competing with current farmland.

Chile’s Atacama Desert showcases the barren panorama the place Photo voltaic Meals may construct future protein factories, powered by considerable photo voltaic power as a substitute of counting on fertile soil or rainfall.

This shift means right now’s agricultural impossibilities are tomorrow’s protein capitals. The Sahara may turn into a significant meals producer via solar energy. Greenland’s glacial areas may harness wind power for protein manufacturing. Power availability, not soil high quality, turns into the figuring out issue for the place meals will get produced.

Location Independence in Motion

As a result of Solein® manufacturing requires solely electrical energy, water, and air, amenities will be constructed anyplace:

The frozen panorama of Greenland demonstrates how Photo voltaic Meals’ expertise can function in excessive chilly environments, utilizing renewable wind power for protein manufacturing no matter harsh climate circumstances.

• Desert Deployment

  Plentiful photo voltaic power in arid areas turns into an asset relatively than a problem. No irrigation, no soil depletion, no issues about drought — simply constant protein manufacturing powered by the solar.

• Arctic Operations

  Manufacturing unit 01 already proves the idea works in Finland’s harsh winters, utilizing renewable wind electrical energy to energy the plant. The managed indoor setting means -40°C exterior temperatures do not have an effect on manufacturing, bringing protein safety to distant northern communities.

• City Integration

  Future amenities may function in industrial areas close to inhabitants facilities, eliminating transportation emissions and bringing protein manufacturing on to shoppers. A warehouse in Brooklyn may produce as a lot protein as 1000’s of acres of farmland. Photo voltaic Meals may even plug right into a metropolis’s district warmth system or make the most of CO2 sidestreams from different manufacturing crops, lowering emissions.

The Final Proving Floor: Outer Area

Photo voltaic Meals’ choice as a world winner in NASA’s Deep Area Meals Problem validates the expertise’s potential for essentially the most excessive environments conceivable. Competing towards over 300 preliminary groups, Photo voltaic Meals demonstrated not simply theoretical functionality however sensible options to humanity’s best exploration challenges.

The Worldwide Area Station represents the last word testing floor for Photo voltaic Meals’ expertise, the place their compact bioreactor system may feed astronauts whereas recovering treasured water assets.

The breakthrough got here when Photo voltaic Meals’ group, led by Senior VP Arttu Luukanen, realized their expertise may clear up one in all area exploration’s most important issues: the water loop. “In area habitats, oxygen is generated by splitting water molecules. Whereas the oxygen is utilized by the crew, the hydrogen is often vented into area, losing worthwhile water”, Luukanen explains. “By feeding this hydrogen and the CO₂ exhaled by astronauts into our course of, we are able to recuperate the water whereas producing Solein® on the similar time.”

This diagram illustrates how Photo voltaic Meals’ expertise creates a closed-loop system in area habitats, changing astronaut-exhaled CO₂ and electrolysis hydrogen into protein whereas recovering over 90% of treasured water.

This innovation aligns completely with NASA’s not too long ago revealed Decadal Survey advocating for bioregenerative life assist methods. The area utility demonstrates exceptional effectivity:

• A 40-liter bioreactor supplies day by day protein for six astronauts
• The system produces oxygen as a helpful byproduct
• Water used within the bioprocess doubles as radiation shielding
• The method recovers water that might in any other case be misplaced to area
• Complete system weight permits for viable Mars mission deployment

The distinctive golden shade comes from Photo voltaic Meals’ Xanthobacter microbes — the identical non-GMO organisms that convert hydrogen and CO2 into nutritious protein. Lab technicians commonly pattern the protein powder to make sure constant high quality and that attribute creamy texture with refined umami notes.

The challenges of area manufacturing — dealing with explosive hydrogen-oxygen mixtures, designing for microgravity, and guaranteeing full automation — have pushed Photo voltaic Meals to develop options that improve terrestrial purposes too. If it really works within the vacuum of area with each gram scrutinized and each watt measured, it may well work anyplace on Earth.

At the moment, Photo voltaic Meals is engaged on cutting down their expertise platform for smaller items that might assist acute conditions like protection purposes or disaster response, bringing the teachings of area exploration again to Earth.

The Know-how That Adjustments The whole lot

Photo voltaic Meals hasn’t simply created one other different protein, they’ve developed a technological platform that basically reimagines how humanity produces meals. By combining fuel fermentation {hardware} with naturally occurring microbes that carry out chemosynthesis, they’ve achieved what a long time of analysis solely theorized: environment friendly, scalable protein manufacturing utterly disconnected from agriculture.

Manufacturing unit 01 stands as proof that this is not laboratory hypothesis or enterprise capital hype. It is 160 tons per 12 months of actual protein, produced each single day no matter climate, season, or local weather. The expertise operates at efficiencies that make photosynthesis look primitive, requires no arable land, and will be deployed anyplace from the Sahara Desert to the floor of Mars.

Juan Benítez-García and Sini Möttönen from Photo voltaic Meals reveal how historical Finnish microbes and renewable electrical energy create Solein®, the revolutionary protein made “out of skinny air” on Episode #175 of the PricePlow Podcast.

Science fiction we solely may have dreamt of a long time in the past is now actuality, in manufacturing proper now. Photo voltaic Meals has given us a glimpse of the long run, and it is powered by air, electrical energy, and a few very intelligent Finnish engineering.

The implications lengthen past simply feeding humanity. As Luukanen notes, “Consider the planet as Spaceship Earth. Similar to in area, we have to shut useful resource loops on our planet, ensuring nothing goes to waste.” By studying to handle the small round loops of a spacecraft’s life assist system, we’re growing the experience to raised handle Earth’s bigger ecosystems. This expertise does not simply supply a brand new option to produce protein, it gives a blueprint for round financial system ideas that might reshape industrial processes throughout sectors.

You too can hearken to the whole story with Juan Benítez-García & Sini Möttönen in Episode #175 of the PricePlow Podcast. Subsequent month, we’ll discover the dietary profile of the completed Solein® protein and the way it compares to conventional sources. However for now, take a second to understand the class of this answer: An organization that is not simply making an attempt to make agriculture extra environment friendly. They’re bypassing it completely.