Grantee Research Project Results
Novel Co-Culture Process for Pretreatment of Food Waste for Alcohol Fuel Synthesis and Methanogenesis
EPA Grant Number: SU835304Title: Novel Co-Culture Process for Pretreatment of Food Waste for Alcohol Fuel Synthesis and Methanogenesis
Investigators: Bouldin, Ryan , McElwee, Matthew , Harris, Nicholas
Current Investigators: Bouldin, Ryan , Del Castillo, Pablo Aguilera , McElwee, Matthew , Critchfield, Maya , Harris, Nicholas , McAdam, Polly
Institution: College of the Atlantic
EPA Project Officer: Hahn, Intaek
Phase: I
Project Period: August 15, 2012 through August 14, 2013
Project Amount: $15,000
RFA: P3 Awards: A National Student Design Competition for Sustainability Focusing on People, Prosperity and the Planet (2012) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Pollution Prevention/Sustainable Development , P3 Challenge Area - Air Quality , P3 Awards , Sustainable and Healthy Communities
Objective:
Our project is aimed at using food waste as a resource for liquid fuel, biogas, and recovering the important agricultural nutrients (nitrogenous compounds and minerals) that are currently lost during landfill or incineration. We propose to develop a simplified method to pre-treat food waste that will enable efficient fermentation to produce a) liquid fuel (butanol and other alcohol fuels), biogas for process heat and potentially electricity generation, and agricultural amendments. The technical challenge is to design and operate a system that does not require significant external energy inputs (or any, once the system is running) and produces no waste stream or pollutants.
Approach:
Our proposed innovation is to use a co-culture of specific fungi to liberate fermentable sugars from the complex polysaccharides in food waste (saccharification). This pretreatment can replace the current energy and cost intensive method of high temperature and high pressure hydrolysis followed by digestion with purified enzymes.
Expected Results:
- Determination of co-culture conditions (feedstock preparation, fungal species used, inoculum size, incubation time and temperature) for maximal saccharification.
- Experimental estimation of butanol/ethanol production from fungal hydrolysate.
- Experimental estimation of methane generation from anaerobic digestion of process residues.
- Estimation of energy (btu) available from liquid fuel and methane from food waste in this process.
- Process report that provides a preliminary overall system design and identifies technical and logistic problems to be solved in Phase II.
Supplemental Keywords:
treatment technologies, bioengineering, holistic design, alternative energy source, waste to energy, biogasProgress and Final Reports:
The 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.