Reveal of Lome® Details
Fredrik Åkerman
17 August 2026
We have been secretive regarding the technical details and features of Lome since we announced its development in 2024. Now we are finally able to reveal more about the product. Today we have published voltagreentech.com/lome, and in this blog post, we will dive deep into the technical aspects of Lome and reveal the science behind it.
Recently we submitted a foundational patent application covering its composition, formulation, and manufacturing methods. After several years of intense work involving 11 farm trials in 7 countries we are in the final stages of preparing our EFSA application to submit for evaluation and later market placement approval in Europe, initially for beef cattle. The EFSA is the toughest but most strategic gateway for future approvals in additional markets. Our ambitions for Lome are global. In addition to the farm trials in Europe, we have been conducting farm trials in the USA and Australia; in a couple of weeks, we will begin another in Brazil.
The development of Lome has been a roller coaster. It’s been years of intense trial and error, and some big failures along the way that have led to the success we have with Lome today.
The active molecule in Lome®
We chose bromoform as the active molecule for Lome. Bromoform is the most effective molecule known to date for suppressing the enzyme called Coenzyme M methyltransferase, which is required by the population of microbes in a cow's rumen called archaea to produce methane.
Bromoform is a molecule naturally produced by certain types of marine algae as a defense mechanism. Those who know Volta Greentech’s history know that we spent many years developing a fully natural feed additive from the seaweed Asparagopsis, which naturally produces bromoform. This research originally came from a fantastic research group in Australia, including Dr. Rob Kinley, who discovered that Asparagopsis possessed properties that could suppress methane formation by the archaea population in the cow's rumen. We successfully demonstrated in Swedish farm trials how adding just 1% of the seaweed to a cow's diet reduced methane emissions by about 80%.
Researching seaweed and how best to use it as a solution to battle global warming was exciting and promising. However, what led us to shift our product strategy was our repeated failure in manufacturing. We worked hard for many years on trying to get it to work. Asparagopsis is not a species used commercially for any other use case. It is a food delicacy in Hawaii and parts of Asia, but it has never been produced commercially. To create our own product, we had to grow it ourselves at a very large scale.
Our journey with seaweed involved building a pilot facility in Lysekil, Sweden, where we had a dedicated team of 14 skilled biologists and engineers who prototyped indoor and greenhouse cultivation of Asparagopsis in tanks and large ponds. It worked on a pilot scale, but we never reached the productivity rates required to make the financials viable. We faced significant technical challenges; with productivity being too low, the capital required for equipment per kilogram produced was too high relative to potential revenue. This led us to seek a better way, resulting in our current, more scalable, and resource-effective chemical process to produce bromoform, which is 10x cheaper and less resource-intense than growing seaweed.
Although the global research community had identified bromoform as the key molecule in Asparagopsis for methane reduction, we initially avoided synthetic development due to the complex regulatory pathway, high investment needed in R&D, and the challenge of replicating the seaweed's natural delivery mechanism. Eventually, we decided to give it a shot because of the big potential if we could get it to work. The first version was unsuccessful. The second was, too. At least to the level of greatness we wanted Lome to have. Then, with the third iteration, we hit a scientific breakthrough after lots of painful R&D… By fantastic work by our R&D team led by Angelo Demeter and Hanna Tydinger we successfully developed a prototype that outperformed seaweed in lab and animal trials. The product got the name Lome. While we sacrificed the 'fully natural' aspect, Lome proved to be more than 10x cheaper, higher consistent quality, more sustainable in its manufacturing, all reasons of which were essential for our goal of scaling methane reduction globally.
Chemical manufacturing of Bromoform
The bromoform produced by Asparagopsis is identical to the chemically synthesized bromoform. The process to produce bromoform chemically is quite clean and simple. Natural bromine, sourced from natural salt brines, is mixed with acetone, a simple and commercially abundant compound, in a mild water bath. During this reaction, the bromine replaces three hydrogen atoms on the acetone molecule. The molecule then cleanly splits, yielding pure bromoform alongside sodium acetate, a completely harmless, biodegradable byproduct that has many use cases from medicine, food, textile and even concrete industry. Because bromoform is much heavier than water, it sinks to the bottom as its own distinct layer, making it easy and clean to separate, wash, and refine with minimal energy and no need for additional solvents or distillation.
For the supply of bromoform, we have partnered with high-quality suppliers based in Europe whose plants operate under the strictest environmental and worker safety regulations. Through state-of-the-art, closed-loop processing, these facilities capture and recycle every byproduct, protecting local air and water. This creates a safe, reliable, local, and high-purity supply of bromoform, identical to that produced by seaweed, enabling us to deliver a greater positive global impact with a minimal environmental footprint.
Formulating a feed additive for cows
Bromoform itself cannot be used directly as a feed additive; nature’s own innovations did a brilliant job of developing cell structures with gland cells to contain it in the seaweed. The formulation we designed for Lome consists of rapeseed oil and specialized starch and carbohydrates that form a protective layer, coating the bromoform while enabling its release in the rumen.
The first step, after producing the ingredients, is to dissolve bromoform in rapeseed oil. Together with the specialized starch and carbohydrates, we create an emulsion, not too different from making mayonnaise at home, but our team wears lab coats and uses industrial equipment. Once prepared, the emulsion is sprayed into an enormously tall drying tower to create a dry powder, looping it to build up the particle size with layers of protective coating. The resulting granules are then packaged and shipped to feed companies to be included in very small amounts in the typical feed fed to beef cattle, giving the farmer flexibility in choosing how their cows will get the additive from concentrate mash to pelletised protein feed and mineral feed mixtures.
The performance of Lome
We have conducted 11 product trials in 7 countries on university farms globally. Our R&D team has been busy and productive, to say the least.
We are seeing promising results. Methane reductions of up to 50%, sometimes higher, as well as improvement of feed efficiency of up to 5%. Inside the rumen, trillions of microbes digest the food the cows eat, turning it into small molecules of energy that the cows body can then use called VFA (volatile fatty acids). However a subset of methanogenic bacteria and archaea do not contribute equally as they only produce methane which can not be utilized by the cow’s body. Historically, this served wild cattle on low-nutrient diets, but in modern farming, they simply represent wasted energy and additional global warming. By gently suppressing these methane-producing archaea with Lome, hydrogen and carbon atoms can be redirected towards molecules that the cow’s body can use, improving feed efficiency. For farmers, a 5% boost is significant, allowing animals to grow more efficiently with less feed while optimizing resource use.
On farm trials with the seaweed Asparagopsis we have seen consistent reductions of about 80%, so why is the methane reduction by Lome, with the identical bromoform molecule, only about 50%? It’s because of the dose of bromoform. In trials with seaweed, a higher bromoform dose has been fed than we are recommending with Lome. The reason for that is because we have found that high reductions can upset the rumen balance too much and give diminishing returns. Our research points that up to 50% or, in some cases less, is just the right amount for unlocking productivity gains while allowing the cow to maintain a healthy and stable fermentation process. This is more important than maximizing the methane reductions as the productivity gains create several additional benefits as well. It’s all about finding the sweet spot that matches the cows’ and the farmers' needs.
How to launch a new feed additive like Lome on the market
A major part of developing a product like Lome is safety, for animals, workers, consumers, and the environment. At Volta, we take this very seriously; we have seen too many historical examples of companies being inconsiderate of ensuring more good is done than harm.
There are strict regulations for feed additives in place globally with a rigorous process for companies to get approvals to place new products on the market.
Developing a feed additive and testing it in the lab and in farm trials is one thing. The other is to develop the full required data package of regulatory compliant trials for enabling regulatory authorities globally to approve the product for use. This covers animal trials for efficacy and safety, safety for users and workers, consumers and the environment. As well as characterisations with rigorous testing of the product’s uniformity, stability and production processes. It’s an understatement that it’s a complex, expensive and time consuming process. Very few companies dare to do it because of the high costs and business risks involved.
For years, we and the wider scientific community have researched the effects of bromoform. At Volta, we have conducted pioneering research on the metabolic fate of bromoform. This was achieved by producing a batch of carbon-14 (14C) radiolabelled bromoform, in which the carbon atom in bromoform is replaced by the readily traceable carbon-14 isotope. Although this is incredibly expensive and technically challenging in itself, it enables us to trace the fate of bromoform in dedicated ‘metabolic-fate’ trials by measuring where the radiolabelled carbon-14 ends up. This is important for assessing potential consumer-safety risks and understanding how the product is metabolised by the animal. The results are nothing short of astonishing. Just like its production, the breakdown of bromoform is also clean and efficient. Following the suppression of methanogenic archaea, bromoform is rapidly metabolised, with the carbon being converted predominantly into carbon dioxide (CO2) and incorporated into the animal’s normal metabolic pathways, where it can contribute to the formation of naturally occurring metabolites and other biological compounds such as amino acids.The bromide, a trace element widely present in soil and water, has no metabolic function in mammals and is readily absorbed and subsequently excreted, primarily through the urine. These findings, together with the study methodology and protocols, will be subject to thorough scientific assessment in the context of the relevant EFSA evaluation. The results will contribute to the scientific assessment required for the approval of Lome for market placement in the EU as a feed additive for beef cattle.
When it comes to dairy cows, which is highly interesting for us as well, the metabolism is slightly different. In trials with dairy cows, we see that tiny amounts of bromoform can be found in milk. Published studies report that bromoform levels can end up in milk and will range from non-detectable to small amounts that remain safely below the WHO (World Health Organisation) safe consumption limit of 100 µg/L. Multiple studies report that trace bromoform levels in treatment groups are statistically indistinguishable from those in control groups. Milk and drinking water will always have some level of bromoform largely due to background exposure from regular drinking water which comes either straight from the natural water in the ground or as part of the water purification process common in water treatment plants. As a comparison, peak bromoform concentrations in milk, at the highest observed level, sits at least 14 times lower ( <10 µg/L or more than an order of magnitude less) than the World Health Organization (WHO) safety guideline limit of 100 µg/L. We intend to conduct further research and communication with EFSA and EC before pursuing Lome as a product for dairy cows and then, when we feel ready, start that regulatory approvals process. First we focus on beef.
That’s enough technical features and science about Lome and cows for now. Hope you have enjoyed learning about the technical details and history of the making of Lome. We are excited to share more in the coming months as we advance toward regulatory approvals and get Lome into the hands of farmers as a tool to battle global warming and increase feed efficiency.
What do you want to hear more about in future blog posts? Let us know in the comments.
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