Integrating hydrothermal liquefaction and anaerobic digestion for energy generation and conservation of water resources in food chain

• Grant number: 19/08736-2
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: September 01, 2019
• End date: August 31, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Sanitary Engineering - Water Supply and Wastewater Treatment
• Mobility Program: SPRINT - Projetos de pesquisa - Mobilidade
• Principal Investigator: Giovana Tommaso
• Grantee: Giovana Tommaso
• Principal researcher abroad: Yuanhui Zhang
• Institution abroad: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, United States
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Zootecnia e Engenharia de Alimentos (FZEA). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Pirassununga , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 17/12486-6 - Anaerobic digestion of oil production via hydrothermal liquefaction of cyanobacterias, AP.BIOEN.R

Abstract

As leading institutions in the Food-Energy-Water Nexus (FEW Nexus) initiative, the partnership between the UIUC and USP will integrate both hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) and anaerobic digestion (AD) as core technologies in order to enhance resource recovery from food and biofuels chains. HTL is an energy-producing technology that uses heat and pressure to convert different types of underutilized wastes into renewable biocrude. Professor Yuanhui Zhang has intensively investigated HTL to optimize operating conditions in small batch and continuous reactions. When processing copious biowastes, anaerobic digestion is implemented for biological wastewater treatment, as further research is needed on the treatment and reuse of the wastewater from HTL reactions, named PHW. and Giovana Tommaso's team at USP focuses on Advanced Oxidation and Adsorption as pre- and post-treatments of PHW for AD, in addition to also applying bio stimulation in newly proposed systems. The US and Brazil are among the world's four dominant food and biofuel production countries. Thus, a natural choice for the expansion of the energy matrix of these countries is the utilization of by-products of such chains. Our focus will be initially based on feedstocks related to dining hall food waste, milk, and bioethanol from both the campuses and private sector. (AU)