Position: PhD since Jan 2015
Department: Chemical and Biological Engineering (CBE)
Aditi David
Research Title: Thermophilic Anaerobic Digestion of Solid Wastes
The growing environmental concerns have increased the demand for alternative renewable sources of energy. Also, landfill disposal of municipal solid waste (MSW) causes several environmental problems such as biogas release, volatile organic compounds emission, and leachates that may be public health hazard and plant toxin. Food and paper wastes represent major fractions (21 and 28%, respectively) of MSW and their efficient management has become imperative today. Therefore, optimized processes for transformation of food and paper wastes into fuels will contribute greatly to realizing the “zero organic waste concept”. Thermophilic anaerobic Digestion (TAD) of complex solid wastes to produce biogas is an attractive option satisfying the dual purpose of waste management and alternative fuel production. Complex mixture of gases (mainly composed of methane; CH4) generated through TAD can be used directly (viz. for heating and burning) and also act as precursor for other commercially viable energy products (viz. methanol, butanol etc.). Production of liquid biofuels (ethanol) through anaerobic fermentation (AF) technology is also a reliable approach to biofuel production.
We aim to combine TAD (which uses novel thermophilic methanogenic consortia) with AF, for the breakdown of complex waste and production of methane. The feedstock for TAD is from another thermophilic reactor project CRUDE (Conversion of Raw and Untreated Disposal into Ethanol), which uses Thermoanaerobacter spp as the biocatalyst. The inoculum for TAD was obtained from a municipal wastewater treatment plant (Waste Water Reclamation Facility, Rapid City, SD). Optimization of TAD of the waste from CRUDE reactors to yield continuous processes is being done. Further studies will be done using even more complex organic wastes as fuel sources.