Researchers look for ways to convert anaerobic digestion into reusable, and profitable, materials.
Every year, a staggering amount of organic waste including uneaten food, yard clippings and manure is dumped into landfills, occupying precious land while producing methane and other gases that pollute the atmosphere. For Colorado State University engineers, this 115 million tons of waste represents not a calamity, but an opportunity – to turn that waste into wealth.
A multi-institutional, CSU-led team has been awarded $5.1 million from the Department of Energy to tackle the organic waste problem with key improvements to a seasoned but unprofitable technology called anaerobic digestion. Anaerobic digestion is a cluster of natural processes by which hungry microorganisms consume carbon-rich organic materials and produce methane and carbon dioxide in an oxygen-free environment.
The DOE Bioenergy Technologies Office recently announced $73 million in support for this and 34 other projects. The CSU team was selected for the DOE office’s “Renewable Energy from Urban and Suburban Wastes” call for proposals, with the goal of transforming such wastes into biofuels and other useful products. Thus over the next five years, the CSU team led by Ken Reardon, professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, aims to make technologically sound, economically sensible improvements to anaerobic digestion of organic waste materials in newly designed bioreactors.
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