| Innovative Bioresource Management Technologies for Enhanced Environmental Quality and Value Optimization | 0420348 | SZOGI A A | 10/01/2010 | 09/30/2015 | COMPLETE | FLORENCE | ANIMAL, WATER, PHOSPHORUS, TRACE, AMMONIA, DENITRIFICATION, REMOVAL, REDOX, OXYGEN, WETLAND, WASTE, QUALITY, NITROGEN, NITRIFICATION, SOLIDS, POTENTIAL, PLANTS, TREATMENT, CARBON, BIOCHAR, PYROLYSIS, ANAMMOX, GENES, AMENDMENT, FERTILIZER, EMISSIONS, GAS, NITROUS, OXIDE | Not applicable | 1. Develop improved treatment technologies to better manage manure from swine, poultry and dairy operations to reduce releases to the environment of odors, pathogens, ammonia, and greenhouse gases as well as to maximize nutrient recovery. 2. Develop renewable energy via thermochemical technologies and practices for improved conversion of manure into heat, power, biofuels, and biochars. 3. Develop guidelines to minimize nitrous oxide emissions from poultry and swine manure-impacted riparian buffers and treatment wetlands. 4. Develop beneficial uses of manure treatment technology byproducts. |
| INNOVATIVE ANIMAL MANURE TREATMENT TECHNOLOGIES FOR ENHANCED ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY | 0409671 | SZOGI A A | 04/03/2005 | 04/02/2010 | COMPLETE | FLORENCE | ANIMAL, WASTE, WATER, QUALITY, PHOSPHORUS, NITROGEN, TRACE, ELEMENTS, AMMONIA, NITRIFICATION, DENITRIFICATION, SOLIDS, REMOVAL, WETLANDS, REDOX, POTENTIAL, OXYGEN, BOD, WETLAND, PLANTS | Not applicable | Develop and evaluate environmentally superior technologies to prevent off-farm release of nutrients and to reduce pathogens, odors, and ammonia emissions. Develop information and technologies to enhance or retrofit existing manure treatment systems to help producers meet environmental criteria (nutrients, emissions, and pathogens). Improve and refine constructed natural treatment technologies to effectively manage nutrients including reducing emissions of ammonia and nitrous oxide. Develop and evaluate new and improved technologies that concentrate/sequester nutrients from manures or create value added products including conversion of livestock waste to energy. Evaluate swine wastewater treatment systems that can be used to reduce emissions, manage nutrients, and control pathogens on small farms. Develop cooperative activities as needed to conduct the research. |
| VALUE-ADDED PRODUCTS FROM FORAGES AND BIOMASS ENERGY CROPS | 0408533 | WEIMER P J | 06/04/2004 | 06/03/2009 | COMPLETE | MADISON | ENZYMES, FRACTIONATION, FERMENTATION, ADHESIVES, GLYCOCALYX, HARVESTING, ALFALFA, GERMPLASM, RESIDUES, BIOENERGY, COMPOSITES, VALUE-ADDED, SWITCHGRASS | Not applicable | 1. Develop harvesting, fractionation and storage processes for forages and bioenergy crops that are economical, and that retain product quality. 2. Identify specific varieties of energy crops that display maximum fermentability when grown at specific locations under defined environmental conditions. 3. Develop switchgrass germplasm having broad adaptation to the northern USA and improved fermentability for conversion to value-added products. 4. Develop and improve fermentations for direct bioconversion of cellulosic biomass to value-added products (viz., ethanol, chemical feedstocks and novel bioadhesive components). |
| VALUE-ADDED PRODUCTS FROM PLANT MATERIALS | 0402375 | WEIMER P J | 10/01/1999 | 06/02/2004 | COMPLETE | MADISON | manures, alfalfa, value added, agricultural engineering, non food commodities, forage legumes, plant enzymes, transgenic plants, fractionation, fermentation, adhesives, energy sources, composites, glycocalyx, filtration, product development, product evaluation, industrial uses, construction materials, phytases, plant fibers, saccharification | Not applicable | 1. Develop methods for harvesting forages and other cellulosic materials that retain feedstock qualtiy. 2. Develop methods to assess the energy feedstock quality of herbaceous biomass crops. 3. Develop low-cost, user-friendly assessment and processing technologies for biomass producers and processors. 4. Develop varieties of switchgrass adapted to the northern USA. 5. Develop technologies for processing and converting biomass materials to value-added products, including fuels, industrial chemicals, and enzymes. |
| Bacterial Methylation of Mine-Derived Inorganic Mercury in Lake and Estuarine Sediments | 0201896 | Nelson, D | 10/01/2009 | 09/30/2014 | COMPLETE | DAVIS | anaerobic bacteria, anaerobic incubations, bag incubations, clear lake, homogenized sediments, iron reducers, mercury biomagnification, mercury mines, methylmercury production, molybdate inhibition, natural populations, pachygrapsus crassipes, sulfate reducers, walker marsh | California's legacy of inorganic mercury pollution from abandoned mines is of concern due to its potential conversion to methylmercury. Bacteria living in oxygen-depleted sediments produce this especially toxic form of mercury, which is readily biomagnified in predatory fish and birds near the apex of aquatic food webs. We have recently shown that a group called "iron-reducing bacteria" are as active at producing methylmercury as other bacteria, called "sulfate-reducers", which were previously believed to perform the bulk of these transformations in marine and freshwater sediments. The current proposal will continue to refine experiments based on natural sediments to determine the general importance of iron-reducers as mercury methylators throughout the sediments of a lake and an estuary impacted by typical mine-derived mercury. Pure cultures of abundant iron-reducing bacteria will also be isolated from mine-impacted marine sediments and assayed for their ability to produce methylmercury from the divalent inorganic form. A variety of stakeholder groups have been interested in our basic research findings on these and related topics to date. The PI will continue to keep these groups informed of our new findings and any possible implications for remediation actions. | The research objectives for this project are as follows: (1) For mine-impacted sediments of Clear Lake, determine the relative contribution of sulfate-reducing bacteria to methylation of mercury while altering native sediment properties and inorganic mercury levels as little as possible. (2) For mine-impacted sediments of Clear Lake that are first manipulated to biologically deplete sulfate and oxidized iron, determine the relative rates of mercury methylation upon supplementation with each biological oxidant separately and both together. (3) For mine-impacted sediments of Walker Creek Estuary and a control site, determine the proportional contribution of sulfate-reducing bacteria to methylation of mercury while altering native sediment properties and inorganic mercury levels as little as possible. (4) For a spectrum of sediment types from Walker Creek Estuary, isolate pure cultures of marine iron-oxidizing bacteria and test the per-cell rates of production of methylmercury for representative cultures. (5) Use bioaccumulation of methylmercury in the muscle tissue of the lined shore crab, PACHYGRAPSUS CRASSIPES, to determine the extent and magnitude of the impact of mercury from Walker Creek on biota around Tomales Bay; a site showing minimal impact will be selected as control sediment for the third objective. . Under the earlier version of this project the PI presented new basic research findings that have implications for mercury management policy to the following stakeholder groups: Delta Tributaries Mercury Council, San Francisco Estuary Institute, San Francisco Bay Water Board. These presentations, made in person or via dissemination of unpublished research findings, were in response to requests from these groups, and we will continue to disseminate our findings in this manner as they become available. Additionally, our report on our Walker Creek Estuary studies, which has been posted on the UC Office of the President Coastal Environmental Quality Initiative website (http://repositories.cdlib.org/ucmarine/ceqi/040), had 742 full-text downloads in the first 30 months of posting (2006-12-13) and continues to be downloaded at a steady pace. We will continue to present our findings at scientific meetings and in research journal articles. A recent peer-review of an earlier version of our pending manuscript on the Walker Creek Estuary studies characterized our 2006 publication (Fleming et al., 2006, Mercury methylation from unexpected sources: molybdate-inhibited freshwater sediments and an iron-reducing bacterium. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 72:457-464) as follows: "In this reviewer's opinion, that finding was one of the most significant advances in Hg biogeochemistry in recent years, because for over 20 years prior to the 2006 paper, SRB [sulfate-reducing bacteria] were the focus of all research on Hg methylation." Thus, we believe that our current basic research emphasis on establishing the generality of those earlier findings continues to have strong implications for environmental policy and remediation of contaminated sites. |