Leveraging Direct Air Capture (DAC) for Targeted Microbial Fermentation

Harnessing PEGASUS: Direct Air Capture Meets HPG + TMF in the Race to Regenerate Carbon

How TITAN and ASMARA transform carbon from problem to product in line with EU priorities

As Europe confronts rising temperatures, tightening emissions targets, and increasing resource instability, a fundamental shift is underway: carbon is no longer seen only as waste, but as feedstock. This shift is visible in new industrial strategies, circular economy goals, and bioeconomy frameworks—but it needs infrastructure to deliver.

That’s where PEGASUS, a modular Direct Air Capture (DAC) system developed for integration with the TITAN and ASMARA platforms, enters the picture. It offers a breakthrough solution: capturing carbon from the air or industrial sources and transforming it into fuels, chemicals, materials, or even nutrients, via the microbial fermentation infrastructure already embedded within TITAN and ASMARA.

This is not speculative. It is already working in pilot, and it fits squarely within existing and forthcoming EU directives.

TITAN and ASMARA: Carbon-Circular by Design

TITAN, built for rural zones, converts forest and agricultural waste into hydrogen-rich gas (HPG) and uses microbial fermentation (TMF) to convert that gas into second-generation ethanol, biochemicals, and energy. ASMARA performs the same function in urban areas using sorted municipal solid waste (MSW). These platforms are modular, scalable, and already aligned with Europe’s Green Deal, REPowerEU, and Fit for 55 objectives.

Adding PEGASUS enhances these platforms by introducing a steady, high-purity stream of captured CO₂, which TMF microbes can metabolise directly. Rather than storing the carbon underground, as most current DAC-to-CCS models propose, PEGASUS routes the carbon into productive pathways—ensuring economic as well as ecological value.

This becomes especially powerful when blending CO₂ from multiple sources. For example:

  • Captured emissions from cement or steel plants (typically high in volume but lower in purity),
  • Ambient CO₂ captured via PEGASUS DAC (typically lower in volume but high in purity).

Blending both streams produces an optimised fermentation feedstock suitable for high-volume biofuels or specialised bio-based outputs. In fact, the purity of DAC opens entirely new metabolic pathways, allowing the production of advanced molecules such as bio-based solvents, high-purity organic acids, or even smart proteins like insulin analogues and bioactive lipids.

This is not just a carbon-negative process. It is biomanufacturing from thin air.

From Waste to Sovereignty Alternatives – Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) Cells

From Waste to Sovereignty: How TITAN and ASMARA Build Europe’s New Biomanufacturing Landscape

TITAN and ASMARA are not just platforms for converting waste into energy. They are flexible, modular bio-manufacturing hubs designed to anchor a new industrial landscape—one built on sovereignty, sustainability, and regional regeneration.

At their core is a powerful integration of Hydrogen Producer Gas (HPG) and Targeted Microbial Fermentation (TMF)—a pairing that unlocks the ability to produce a vast spectrum of high-value outputs: fuels, bioplastics, chemicals, proteins, and even advanced medical bioproducts like CHO (Chinese Hamster Ovary) cells.

But more importantly, these platforms offer a way to reindustrialise rural Europe, create high-quality employment in overlooked regions, and reduce the continent’s dependence on imported fuels, chemicals, and biopharmaceutical precursors.

Syngas Project Pioneering Solutions for a Healthier Future

 Mr Hyde

Reclaiming Insulin Sovereignty: TITAN and ASMARA Platforms for Mass Biomanufacturing in Europe

Breaking the Cartel: Insulin, Inequality, and the Opportunity for European Leadership

At the heart of the global diabetes crisis lies a quiet but devastating monopoly: a life-saving medicine held hostage by a handful of manufacturers. Despite insulin being off-patent for decades, just three global pharmaceutical giants dominate the market—dictating pricing, supply, and access. This concentration of control has limited the availability of affordable insulin, especially in regions already under economic pressure.

In the United States, insulin prices have soared beyond reason. Europe, including Poland and other Central and Eastern European nations, now faces similar systemic risks: rising diabetes rates, increasing healthcare costs, and inadequate local production capacity. But amid this crisis lies a chance to rewrite the pharmaceutical supply chain—through a bold, sovereign European solution: the TITAN and ASMARA platforms.

The Insulin Crisis: A Manufactured Scarcity

Insulin is not a rare or exotic molecule. It has been biosynthesised for over 40 years using recombinant DNA technology. The science is well-understood. The demand is clear. And yet, millions of people globally still struggle to access it due to pricing structures, regulatory lock-ins, and lack of local production.

  • Patients ration insulin to make it last—resulting in amputations, blindness, kidney failure, and death.
  • Governments overspend on cartel-priced imports—diverting budgets from prevention and education.
  • Local biomanufacturing is nearly nonexistent—especially in rural or post-industrial regions where new health infrastructure is most needed.

Europe’s current strategy, relying on imports and foreign-owned production, offers no resilience, no price control, and no autonomy.

TITAN and ASMARA: A Platform for Pharmaceutical Sovereignty

The TITAN (rural) and ASMARA (urban) platforms are not pharma factories in the traditional sense. They are modular, circular, multi-output bio-industrial systems. Originally designed to transform biomass and waste into hydrogen producer gas (HPG) and ethanol, these platforms now represent the future of distributed biomanufacturing—including insulin.

Each platform features:

  • Renewable, 24-hour power and heat, generated from local waste streams
  • Targeted Microbial Fermentation (TMF) stations, already capable of industrial protein synthesis
  • CO₂-ready infrastructure for enhanced fermentation using waste or captured carbon
  • A scalable, cookie-cutter design that enables low-cost replication across the EU

By adding a dedicated pharmaceutical-grade fermentation unit, any TITAN or ASMARA site can pivot to produce biosynthetic insulin using engineered microbial strains like E. coli or yeast—in clean, stable, sovereign-controlled conditions.

This isn’t hypothetical. TITAN’s ethanol lines already handle 50,000 litres per day. The same bioreactors and feedstock management protocols can be adapted to pharmaceutical production with minimal redesign.