Polson biochemist earns Green Chemistry Award
Polson biochemist Ed Gannon nudges a nondescript gray chunk of rock, and then shakes a pile of round pellets into his hand. Both contain phosphate – a nutrient formed millions of years ago that’s described as the backbone of DNA, and is vital for plant growth, photosynthesis and all life on earth.
But only one – PhoSul – makes this essential element readily available to plants.
Gannon and his five partners recently won the 2024 Green Chemistry Challenge Award for PhoSul, a product that’s capable of revolutionizing the phosphate fertilizer industry. The award was presented to four companies and the University of Delaware by the Environmental Protection Agency during United Nations Climate Week in New York City.
PhoSul was recognized for offsetting climate change by making phosphate fertilizer “that avoids hazardous chemicals and waste emissions associated with traditional phosphate fertilizer production, such as strong acids, heavy metals, and radioactive materials.”
Gannon, a native of Great Falls, now lives on Flathead Lake with his wife, Diane. He spent his career working in the agriculture industry, and says the product has taken three decades to develop.
The story begins in 1995, when Gannon met Dr. Robert Rogers, a soil microbiologist at the Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho Falls. The scientist showed him granules he called BioPhosphate – a mix of ground-up phosphate rock held together with molasses.
“He asked me to take his technology to the big producers to get his idea going,” recalls Gannon.
But in 1995, the big fertilizer companies weren’t particularly interested in such a simple and relatively inexpensive manufacturing process. “At that time, there were no environmental rules and there were copious amounts of easy-to-get phosphorus, despite the toxicity of the process.”
Still, major issues loomed for the industry. Namely, there’s a finite amount of phosphorus buried in the earth, and huge amounts are excavated daily to help feed the world’s burgeoning population.
“And of course, the lowest hanging fruit has been taken first,” Gannon said, which means it’s getting more and more expensive to mine the remaining reserves.
Plus, the current extraction processes are inefficient and polluting, leaving mountains of toxic and even radioactive byproducts, and the phosphate plants cost billions to build and maintain.
Globally, the current phosphate technology contributes about 2% of the world’s manmade greenhouse gases. According to Gannon, PhoSul’s technology would cut this outpouring by 80% down to .4%.
In addition, Gannon says just 20% of the 60 million tons of phosphate fertilizer applied annually actually reaches the plant’s roots. The rest can leach into the groundwater, polluting lakes and rivers and causing toxic algal blooms. PhoSul resists that process, preventing phosphorus from seeping into the soil, and building healthier dirt along the way.
To better grasp the complex issues surrounding phosphate fertilizer production, and the environmental dangers it poses, he encourages people to read “The Devil’s Element: Phosphorus and a World Out of Balance” by Dan Egan.
Building partnerships
Despite a lukewarm reception from the fertilizer industry, Gannon found an ally in his friend and client Jim Samuelson, a chemical engineer for a major agribusiness company. The two men retired around the same time and decided to pursue their dream of developing a new approach to phosphorus fertilizers.
They met with two brothers who had just built a granulation facility in Sugar City, Idaho, to make their own eco-friendly ProPEAT fertilizer, which uses peat moss to hold plant nutrients in place.
The brothers, John and Jeff Pocock, had excess capacity at their plant and agreed to make the first batch in 2018, using phosphate rock mined near Deer Lodge. Their attitude was “let’s just do it, and we’ll figure out what the problems are later,” Gannon says.
“So we made 25 tons, enough to get it out on the farm and in research facilities,” including Montana State University’s Agricultural Research Centers.
“We made it. We put it out on the ground. It worked great,” Gannon says. “It was proof of concept.”
An organic farmer near St. Ignatius put the new product on his alfalfa, next to the same size stand fertilized with unenhanced rock phosphate, and had double the yield and twice the protein with PhoSul.
By this time, the Pocock brothers were on board with the new product, and the four men began improving the formulation with the help of Dr. Jed Eberly, a soil microbiologist at the MSU Research Station in Mocassin who continues to consult with the group on laboratory, greenhouse and field studies.
“There's a lot of tweaking,” says Gannon. “What we have is a Kitty Hawk and it works well. But what's possible here is a 747, especially in conjunction with newly developed biologicals that we’re evaluating.”
Gannon’s nephew, Pat Gannon, is now part of the team. He’s a metallurgical engineer who graduated from the School of Mines in Butte and has spent more than three decades working with international mining corporations, including a stint as vice president of operations at one of the largest copper mines and milling operations in the world, located in Peru.
Also on board is venture capitalist Kasey Evans, “the finance guy.”
They’ve established a new partnership with a phosphate mining operation near Spanish Fork, Utah, and a production facility in Delta, Utah. Between the Utah and Idaho plants, they’re currently able to produce about 35,000 tons of PhoSul a year, but Gannon says they’d be able to ramp up production quickly by operating the plants round-the-clock.
In addition to supplying PhoSul in bulk to farmers, they also offer the product in 25-pound bags at Home Depot.
Green Chemistry Award
Which brings Gannon back to the Green Chemistry Award, which was a community effort: he nephew helped submit the application last winter when the two them were in Great Falls for the Montana Organic Association Convention. Ed had applied in 2020, and didn’t hear back from the EPA, so he wasn’t optimistic.
But Pat and he reworked the original application, “clicked a button, sent it in and forgot about it.”
Then, on Aug. 8 at around 8 a.m., Ed was in his kitchen and a call came in from Washington, D.C. He thought, “‘What kind of spam is this?’ I let it ring and ring and finally at the last minute I pushed okay.”
The call was from Chen Wen from the EPA, who told him, “within an hour I'm going to send you an email signed by the Secretary of Agriculture.”
PhoSul was one of five winners out of 33 applicants – including big corporations like Land of Lakes and Merck Pharmaceuticals. The EPA asked him to fly to New York and give a four-minute presentation during Climate Week.
“My kids (he has four) said, ‘you gotta go,’” and all pitched in for the trip since it wasn’t an expense-paid junket. His son, Tim, a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force, went with him and was in the audience for his presentation at the Yale Club, near Times Square, as was Kasey Evans.
The five winners were chosen by an independent panel of technical experts convened by the American Chemical Society Green Chemistry Institute, and PhoSul was singled out during the introduction as “an incredible idea that’s fairly simple.”
Most recently, Gannon has been invited to offer a professional webinar about PhoSul to scientists with the American Chemical Society.
“They want a technical presentation, as deep as possible without disclosing ‘the keys to the kingdom,’” he said.
And finally, major fertilizer companies and investment firms are noticing the start-up too.
For Gannon, it’s been a rewarding 30-year quest.
He was in his 40s when Dr. Rogers first planted the seed for PhoSul in his brain, and Gannon’s been tending it ever since. He’s now 73, and says he’s starting to feel his age.
Yet, thanks to his brainpower and persistence, and the commitment and know-how of his partners, their business appears to be on the cusp of revolutionizing a fertilizer that’s crucial to feeding the world – and desperately in need of a more environmentally friendly paradigm.
Learn more at phosul.com.
A handful of PhoSul, the innovative and eco-friendly phosphate fertilizer that's making waves in the plant-growing world. (Courtesy photo)