How Chemergy is Changing the Game in Waste-to-Energy
Imagine a world where the mountains of waste continuously produced by humans are transformed into clean sustainable energy for our local communities - this is the vision that EHF Fellow Dr Melahn Parker is making a reality.
Melahn is one of the minds and founders behind Chemergy, a cleantech venture that is making an impact in the climate innovation space. With Bachelors from MIT, an MSc in Chemical Engineering from Caltech and a PhD in Aeronautics from Stanford University, Melahn's academic journey is nothing short of remarkable. His professional path, which includes roles at DNV, McKinsey & Company, Northrop Grumman, Sandia National Labs, and Boeing has equipped him with the expertise to tackle the pressing energy and environmental challenges of our time. Using his deep understanding of energy systems, Melahn is on a mission to revolutionise how we manage waste and produce clean energy.
Innovative Solutions
At the core of Chemergy's work is the HyBrTec technology, a groundbreaking process that converts organic matter and plastic waste into hydrogen, pressurized CO₂, heat, and inorganic fertiliser. The process breaks down complex and difficult waste materials with innovative chemistry to turn these environmental liabilities into valuable resources. By transforming waste into usable products, Chemergy is addressing the challenges of waste management, clean energy production, sustainable feedstock production, and decarbonisation.
HyBrTec technology. Image: Chemergy
Melahn’s vision extends beyond just developing technology; it aims to make a tangible impact on the environment and the global community, offering a scalable solution that can be implemented worldwide to reduce pollution and promote sustainable energy practices.
Melahn explains:
“Biosolids, municipal solid waste, animal manure and other wet carbon wastes can all be upcycled into clean future proof hydrogen chemical feedstock or energy carrier, and green carbon dioxide ready for use or sequestration, while significantly reducing water pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Ultimately, we’re turning a problem - pollutant waste - into a solution - clean energy ”
Notably, Chemergy’s platform stands out for its efficiency; it operates using 50% less electricity compared to traditional methods while also producing more hydrogen from the same feedstock and avoiding the need for drying as water is a co-reactant. Because electricity is used in the process, the system adds further value by being a flexible load in a resilient grid that encourages the adoption of more intermittent renewable energy.
Competitive advantages of HyBrTec. Image: Chemergy
Practical Implementation and Community Resilience
Chemergy is a compelling illustration of how advanced technology can drive real-world step change solutions and support community wellbeing by applying the cutting-edge innovation of HyBrTec in practical, impactful ways. The company's systems are engineered to integrate seamlessly into various community settings, converting local waste streams into valuable hydrogen and easy to dispose of or repurpose CO₂. This approach strengthens community resilience by turning waste into a local resource, enhancing local energy security, and providing a path to being carbon negative.
Key milestones in Chemergy’s journey are its inclusion in the Halliburton Labs scalerator in March 2022, and the 35 Mules incubator of FPL Group under NextEra Energy in Oct 2023. These collaborations have been pivotal in refining the technology to ensure it can be safely and effectively implemented in diverse communities with consideration for real world operating constraints, and underscores everyone’s commitment to solving actual waste disposal issues and advancing sustainable fuel production.
Melahn says:
“Imagine a world where a city's waste powers its homes. For developing cities, HyBrTec can be installed locally at a community scale, reducing waste transport costs and environmental impact, while integrating seamlessly with renewable energy as a flexible load. For established cities, HyBrTec offers a large central solution that integrates with existing infrastructure for waste treatment and utilisation, energy production, and electric storage, all in one resilient system.”
Future Goals and Vision
Melahn being an engineer. Image: Chemergy
Looking ahead, Chemergy aims to revolutionise waste management with its plans for a household appliance that processes kitchen, toilet, postal, and yard waste into renewable hydrogen and heat. This innovation could transform household waste management, offering economic incentives to keep waste off the streets and significantly reduce its environmental impacts. Much like ice production moved from large central plants to domestic fridges in every home in the past century, HyBrTec offers a path to truly distributed waste elimination.
In the short term, Chemergy has ambitious targets. Over the next year, the company is testing and evaluating a pilot system for processing biosolids, and is preparing to pursue a similar technology to process hydrogen sulphide for the oil and gas industry to ‘sweeten their sour gases’. On completing the pilot operations, Chemergy will break ground on a pre-commercial prototype capable of processing forty tons of wet biowaste per day, marking a significant advancement in waste-to-energy technology.
Melahn adds:
“We're now in the demonstration phase, proving our technology, and preparing for manufacturing. We want to get systems up and running to start solving the problems, and collect operating data to do the value engineering that allows us to drive the costs down with both scale and mass production efficiencies to turn waste into wealth, and pollution into power.”
Recognition and Investment
Chemergy’s approach has not gone unnoticed. Recently, the company received a US$100,000 investment from Miami-Dade Innovation Authority to address the sargassum season - a time when large quantities of floating seaweed accumulate along coastlines, causing significant environmental issues and disposal costs. This funding will allow Chemergy to adopt its process to mitigate this very real, environmental problem and facilitate applying the technology in future iterations to animal manure and agricultural residues.
Sargassum Seaweed on Miami Beach, 21 June 2018. Image: Michael Montero/UM News
During the recent 2025 Hillary Innovation Summit, Melahn connected with Ara Ake, NZ’s energy innovation agency, and multiple private stakeholders in the waste and energy value chain where he explored potential test cases and the opportunities and gaps in Aotearoa.
While organic wastes are deteriorating NZ ecosystems due to only the minimal treatment being required, the problem is not as significant as other parts of the world due to its low population density. Still, NZ is one of the most forward thinking populations and is proactively addressing this future liability by investing to improve its waste infrastructure.
HyBrTec is well placed to solve the solids burden from wastewater treatment as well as animal manure from confined area feeding operations and municipal solid waste from residents, and Melahn’s opened a NZ office specifically focused on plant design and special parts manufacture with the intention of making NZ an example of how to expand HyBrTec into larger Australasian markets.
Melahn’s work with Chemergy illustrates the profound difference that innovative, scalable solutions can make in addressing climate challenges. By transforming waste into green hydrogen and valuable resources, Chemergy is not only advancing waste-to-energy technology but also enabling community resilience. His work embodies the impactful, forward-thinking solutions that EHF Fellows are creating to tackle some of the world’s most critical challenges, proving that transformative technology can drive meaningful environmental and societal change.
To learn more about Chemergy, visit www.chemergy.co.
Melahn is part of the Fellow group Manu Tukutuku, which had its Welcome Experience in 2023. Learn more about Melahn via the Fellow Directory on our website.
