Capstone· Capstone with Cyrtan Energy, CMU

Cyrtan Recovery Hub.

Turning contaminated wood waste from a disposal problem into clean electricity, for a whole cluster of manufacturers.

Read the final report ↗See the LinkedIn post ↗
Team
6 members
Context
Capstone with Cyrtan Energy, CMU
Cyrtan Recovery Hub

A great solution only works when it fits into the right ecosystem.

The Brief

When we started, I assumed we would be designing a new product. But Cyrtan Energy already had one: a clean energy solution that converts biomass such as waste wood and agricultural residue into continuous, on-site electricity, unlike intermittent solar or wind. The real question was: how do you design a system that creates value for both the business and its customers? Over the semester that took us into market fit, profitability, financial modeling, regulations, marketing strategy, site planning, mechanical engineering, and business operations. At times it felt like building a mini startup from the ground up.
The Opportunity

Clean wood already has a working disposal market. Contaminated wood, painted, pressure-treated, glued, or composite, does not. Recyclers reject it, it is too dense and combustible for municipal waste processing, and its only exit today is the landfill. No competitor operates in this space.

Why Manufacturers Are Stuck

Material

Wood waste splits into a clean stream recyclers accept and a contaminated stream they reject. Whole loads get reclassified as trash when contamination is detected, and preservatives like arsenic, chromium, and copper make standard recycling unviable.

Financial

Tipping fees reached $62.28 per tonne nationally in 2024, plus $2–$10 per mile in hauling. With fuel surcharges and vendor margins, regional manufacturers face $300–$400 per tonne, too little volume each to justify on-site processing.

Operational

Sorting streams, scheduling hauler pickups, keeping on-site storage within regulatory limits, and maintaining compliance paperwork falls on plant managers and yard supervisors who are also running production.

Field Research in Millersburg, Ohio

To validate the opportunity, the team ran interviews and a field study in Millersburg, Ohio, a major hub for wood manufacturing, speaking with three wood manufacturers and seven wood finishers about their day-to-day pain points.
  • Even small shops generate a lot of treated waste: one furniture finisher disposes of four 55-gallon drums every three to four weeks, roughly $40,000 a year.
  • Many burn combustibles in basic on-site incinerators that capture no energy, and the residue still needs professional removal from distant vendors.
  • Manufacturers’ main concern was operational independence: specialized disposal sits in distant industrial hubs, leaving them at the mercy of third-party schedules and fuel surcharges.
  • The most significant finding was geographic density. These manufacturers are not isolated; within a small radius there are dozens of shops facing the same $40,000-a-year problem.
The Shift

Instead of trying to sell a plant to a single manufacturer, Cyrtan starts a pilot positioned as the heart of a 30-manufacturer cluster. Aggregating waste from nearby shops creates a consistent, high-volume feedstock that justifies a local energy hub: a community-utility model, not a single-customer sale.

How the Recovery Hub Works

01

Discovery & contracting

Identify manufacturer clusters, estimate waste volumes through site assessments, and sign annual flat-rate capacity contracts.

02

Preprocessing

Frequent small-load, just-in-time deliveries to the hub. Material is weighed, tracked by source, sorted, and pelletized into generator-ready feedstock.

03

Value creation

Cyrtan’s containerized generator converts the feedstock to electricity, stored in Cyrtan batteries and sold to local grids, community energy buyers, or the manufacturers themselves.

A Win-Win Value Exchange

For manufacturers

Cheaper, simpler, predictable disposal

Priced below today’s $300–$400 per tonne burden, one contract instead of multiple haulers, fixed annual pricing instead of volatile fees, documentation that supports compliance and sustainability reporting, and control over disposal timing.

For Cyrtan

Low-cost feedstock and recurring revenue

A continuous, concentrated biomass supply that customers pay to remove, two revenue streams (disposal fees and energy), first-mover advantage with no direct competitor, and a template that scales by replicating clusters across the Midwest.

30
Manufacturers
In the Millersburg target cluster
1,050
Tonnes processed a year
In the Year 1 financial model
$1.45M
Year 1 gross revenue
Projected, single hub deployment
96.7%
Contribution margin
Per tonne of waste processed

The Financial Model

A single Millersburg hub processing 1,050 tonnes of contaminated wood is projected to bring in $1,449,000 in Year 1 from three sources: waste disposal subscriptions ($1,260,000), charged battery sales ($168,000), and carbon credits ($21,000). Because the model is waste-fed, variable costs stay structurally low, giving a 96.7% contribution margin. A successful pilot becomes a replicable template for wood manufacturing clusters across the Midwest.

The Project Video

Our two-minute project video, also shared on LinkedIn. Open on LinkedIn ↗

What I Took Away

  • The best insights often come from unexpected conversations.
  • Every meaningful innovation begins with ambiguity.
  • Curiosity matters more than having all the answers.
  • A strong team can navigate unfamiliar territory.