Tiny super-plant can clean up animal waste and be used
for ethanol production
Researchers at North Carolina State University have found that a tiny
aquatic plant can be used to clean up animal waste at industrial hog farms
and potentially be part of the answer for the global energy crisis. Their
research shows that growing duckweed on hog wastewater can produce five to
six times more starch per acre than corn, according to researcher Dr. Jay
Cheng. This means that ethanol production using duckweed could be "faster
and cheaper than from corn," says fellow researcher Dr. Anne-Marie Stomp.
"We can kill two birds — biofuel production and wastewater treatment —
with one stone — duckweed," Cheng says. Starch from duckweed can be readily
converted into ethanol using the same facilities currently used for corn,
Cheng adds.
Corn is currently the primary crop used for ethanol production in the United
States. However, its use has come under fire in recent years because of
concerns about the amount of energy used to grow corn and commodity price
disruptions resulting from competition for corn between ethanol
manufacturers and the food and feed industries. Duckweed presents an
attractive, non-food alternative that has the potential to produce
significantly more ethanol feedstock per acre than corn; exploit existing
corn-based ethanol production processes for faster scale-up; and turn
pollutants into a fuel production system. The duckweed system consists of
shallow ponds that can be built on land unsuitable for conventional crops,
and is so efficient it generates water clean enough for re-use. The
technology can utilize any nutrient-rich wastewater, from livestock
production to municipal wastewater.
Large-scale hog farms manage their animal waste by storing it in
large "lagoons" for biological treatment. Duckweed utilizes the
nutrients in the wastewater for growth, thus capturing these nutrients
and preventing their release into the environment. In other words, Cheng
says, "Duckweed could be an environmentally friendly, economically
viable feedstock for ethanol." "There's a bias in agriculture that all
the crops that could be discovered have been discovered," Stomp says,
"but duckweed could be the first of the new, 21st century crops. In the
spirit of George Washington Carver, who turned peanuts into a major
crop, Jay and I are on a mission to turn duckweed into a new industrial
crop, providing an innovative approach to alternative fuel production." |
The tiny duckweed plant not
only cleans up waste from industrial farms, but produces five to six
times more starch per acre than corn. Starch is what is used to... |
Cheng, a professor of biological and agricultural engineering,
co-authored the research with Stomp, associate professor of forestry, and
post-doctoral research associate, Mike Yablonski. The research, which is
funded by the North Carolina Biofuels Center, was presented March 21 at the
annual conference of the Institute of Biological Engineering in Santa Carla,
Calif.
Cheng and Stomp are currently establishing a pilot-scale project to further
investigate the best way to establish a large-scale system for growing
duckweed on animal wastewater, and then harvesting and drying the duckweed.
Contact: Matt Shipman
matt_shipman@ncsu.edu
919-515-6386
North Carolina State
University |