Local company turns rice waste into ‘carbon gold’

By Jane Roberts, Daily Memphian

Graphyte buys rice hulls and forestry waste from mills in Pine Bluff, Ark., and processes them into bricks. It layers the bricks in the ground with technology to assure that water is not present. By the end of 2025, it intends to have capacity to keep 65,000 tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere. 

In an old gravel quarry outside Pine Bluff, Arkansas, Memphis businessman Barclay Rogers is running what could be the largest durable carbon dioxide removal facility in the world.

His company, Graphyte, dries and compresses rice hulls and forestry waste into dense, thick bricks, which are encased in an underground liner — what Rogers calls the world’s largest Ziploc bag — to keep them from breaking down and releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

“Plant matter contains carbon and water. If you take the water away, you can keep it from breaking down,” Rogers said as part of the biology-laced economics lesson he’s been giving investors and corporate partners for more than two years now.

Rogers, Graphyte’s CEO and founder, buys tons of rice hulls and forestry waste from mills in Pine Bluff.

“Let’s go work with farmers and foresters to take their waste products and turn it into carbon gold,” he said.

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