Grantee Research Project Results
Implementation of an Industrial Scale Larvae BioReactor
EPA Grant Number: SU840580Title: Implementation of an Industrial Scale Larvae BioReactor
Investigators: Brownell, Sarah
Institution: Rochester Institute of Technology
EPA Project Officer: Page, Angela
Phase: I
Project Period: August 1, 2023 through July 31, 2024
Project Amount: $24,931
RFA: 19th Annual P3 Awards: A National Student Design Competition Focusing on People, Prosperity and the Planet Request for Applications (RFA) (2022) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: P3 Challenge Area - Sustainable and Healthy Communities , P3 Awards
Description:
As cities grow, so does the complexity of managing the waste of their residents. In 2018, Americans generated 292.4 million tons of municipal solid waste (MSW). Currently, 68% of paper/paperboard discards and 63% of yard trimmings are recovered. By comparison, food waste is recovered at a very low rate. Only 4.1% of food waste is recovered for composting with 42.9 million tons (67.9%) destined for landfills or incinerators. Consequently, about a fifth of all unrecovered municipal solid waste is food waste. The US EPA estimates that “more food reaches landfills and incinerators than any other single material in our everyday trash.” Addressing this stream of unrecovered organic material represents an important challenge and a potentially profitable entrepreneurial opportunity. There are also numerous environmental, economic, and political issues associated with traditional methods for managing the large volumes of food waste encountered. Incinerators generate emissions and the high moisture content of most food waste means that its combustion generally requires the investment of energy, often from fossil fuels. Landfill sites occupy large areas of land, generate potentially dangerous leachate, and emit odors and greenhouse gasses. Determining appropriate siting for new landfills and incinerators has proven to be politically challenging.
Alternative approaches to managing and reducing the volume of food waste could yield important benefits such as extending the life of existing landfills, reducing tipping costs, and reducing environmental impacts from off-gassing and transportation of heavy wastes. Black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens; Diptera: Stratiomyidae) larvae (BSFL) composting offers the ability to process a wide variety of food waste, thereby reducing the volume of the waste substantially. Advantages of BSFL over traditional composting methods include a more rapid waste processing cycle, a significantly smaller processing footprint, and low sensitivity to the incoming feedstock. The fattened larvae can be processed into animal feed, biodiesel, or biogas, or into chemical components currently being researched for use in pharmaceuticals and organic semiconductors.
Objective:
One important technical challenge that remains for greater adoption of BSFL upcycling technology is the issue of scaling bioreactor designs up to the industrial level. Currently there is a significant body of research into smaller scale benchmark experiments, but there is much less research into experimentation at a scale necessary for meaningful implementation. There even exists some research showing that some of the key learnings from these benchmark experiments do not translate to larger scale implementations. To address this gap our Phase I Objectives include 1] Development of a scalable design for a bioreactor for testing in our environmentally monitored, insulated smart shed 2] Scaling and implementation of this design with any necessary pre-processing steps inside a larger structure capable of composting at least 500 lbs/week of campus dining hall food waste streams 3] Analysis of the inputs and outputs of the bioreactor systems to determine problems, means of improvement, and further applications.
Approach:
Teams of undergraduate students will design the scalable bioreactor and the larger system under the direction of the PI and our various advisors in engineering, sustainability, and biology. They will follow a design process and examine various system designs and construction approaches to determine appropriate solutions. Graduate students will assist with system operation, data collection and analysis. We will work in conjunction with RIT’s Sustainability Department to assess our potential environmental impact and drive campus implementation. Participation in this project will enable many students from a variety of disciplines the opportunity to engage in a hands-on effort as well as conduct data analysis on various sustainability issues, including environmental and economic aspects of solid waste management and waste reduction.
Expected Results:
At the conclusion of Phase I, a prototype for a scalable continuous BSFL bioreactor will have been developed and constructed for further testing. We will have identified and characterized the processing steps and inputs needed (electricity for pre-processing, monitoring, heating and ventilation, water, food, egg supply, etc) to sustain the larger bioreactor system as well as the emissions, useful products, and wastes produced. We will also have access to a regular supply of black soldier fly larvae that will be used in subsequent experiments. RIT’s Senior Sustainability Advisor will be monitoring the performance of the scalable bioreactor to assess the potential for the larger system to handle RIT’s food waste. To acquaint the RIT community with the concept of alternative food waste management the project will be included in the Campus Ecology course and will be a featured exhibit at the IMAGINE RIT Innovation and Creativity Festival held each April.
Currently, the requirements to scale a continuous bioreactor system of black soldier fly larvae are not thoroughly understood. This research represents a much needed step toward expanding the understanding of existing smaller scale experimental systems to larger industrial systems. Successful scaling of a BSFL upcycling system to a neighborhood scale offers the potential to dramatically reduce the food waste residue that is relegated to landfills, reduce transport costs and emissions from waste, provide useful byproducts like animal feed, fuel, chitosan and melanin, and open up additional entrepreneurial opportunities in the waste management domain.
Supplemental Keywords:
resource recovery, solid waste management, waste reduction, waste-to-energy, biogas, insect production, cost-benefit analysisThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.