Source: OLD DOMINION UNIVERSITY RESEARCH FOUNDATION submitted to NRP
PARTNERSHIP: SUSTAINABLE PROCESSING OF FOOD WASTE TO HIGH VALUE ENERGY STORAGE MATERIAL
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
ACTIVE
Funding Source
AFRI COMPETITIVE GRANT
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1032415
Grant No.
2024-67021-42490
Cumulative Award Amt.
$800,000.00
Proposal No.
2023-10766
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Project Start Date
Jul 1, 2024
Project End Date
Jun 30, 2027
Grant Year
2024
Program Code
[A1531]- Biorefining and Biomanufacturing
Recipient Organization
OLD DOMINION UNIVERSITY RESEARCH FOUNDATION
4111 MONARCH WY STE 204
NORFOLK,VA 23508
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
More than a third of the food produced in the United States goes uneaten, squandering energy, water, and space in landfills while contributing to methane emissions and water pollution from agricultural practices. This waste occurs at every stage of the food chain, from cultivation to consumption by households and the food service industry. Food waste contains five major components i.e., carbohydrates, proteins, extractives, lignin, and lipids. These components are renewable resources to manufacture bioproducts. It can drive circularity by providing an alternative to making, using, and disposing of paradigm and keeping resources in use for as long as possible, extracting maximum value.This project will engineer a robust and scalable processing platform for converting food waste to high surface area carbon which can be used in supercapacitors. The process will apply a geo-mimic hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) method to capture organic carbon containing in food waste in solid form termed as hydrochar. Subsequently, hydrochar will be thermo-chemically activated to high surface area carbon (>1000 m2/g) which will be characterized for its energy storage properties. The wastewater generated during the HTC process will be biologically treated by cultivating marine protist biomass. The treated water can be recycled for conducting HTC process whereas generated biomass from biological treatment will be used for making hydrochar along with food waste.The end goal of the project is to demonstrate an environmentally benign food waste valorization process to high surface area carbon material and a way to reduce the disposal costs of the food waste stream by more than 40% compared to conventional anaerobic digestion.A combination of experimental and modelling approach will be adopted for optimizing the proposed food waste valorization process. The process parameters will be used for developing techno-economic model to understand the economic viability of the proposed process in comparison to existing food waste valorization methods. The life cycle assessment analyses will inform the greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impacts of the project. The scientific outcomes from this project will be disseminated to scientific audiences through peer-reviewed publications and conference presentations/posters. Whereas outreach activities including workshops and community engagements will help educating local communities, pre-college students, and industry stakeholders.
Animal Health Component
50%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
20%
Applied
50%
Developmental
30%
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
40350102020100%
Knowledge Area
403 - Waste Disposal, Recycling, and Reuse;

Subject Of Investigation
5010 - Food;

Field Of Science
2020 - Engineering;
Goals / Objectives
The major goal of the project is to develop a robust and scalable processing platform for converting food waste to a marketable product (high surface area carbon) for its application in supercapacitor. A hybrid processing approach is proposed by integrating hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) process and unique marine protist, Thraustochytrium striatum cultivation.The cultivated protist biomass is recycled to HTC reactor to maximize the carbon recovery which ultimately increases the yield of hydrochar. A chemical/thermal activation process is applied to hydrochar to convert it to high surface area carbon which has application in supercapacitors. Besides hydrochar, the proposed HTC process produces aqueous phase (HTC-AP) containing dissolved organic compounds and nutrients (N & P). A modular system for protist biomass cultivation using HTC-AP is another goal of this project. It is required to maximize the carbon recovery from food waste and use the solubilized nutrients for protist biomass cultivation.The research objectives of this proposal include:Objective 1: Process simulation, optimization, and predictive modeling of HTC process for food waste conversion to hydrochar.Objective 2: Reduce metal impurities in hydrochar by applying a novel ultrasound-assisted leaching (UAL) process using acetic acid.Objective 3: Develop a novel thermal/chemical treatment process for converting hydrochar to a high surface area carbon for supercapacitor application.Objective 4: Study the biological treatment of the food waste-derived HTC-AP using suspended and granulated marine protist.Objective 5: Scale up studies, techno-economic, and life cycle assessment (TEA and LCA) of the proposed process.Objective 6: Develop outreach programs for the education and broader impacts to community.By the end of the project, we will demonstrate the entire integrated operation for food waste conversion to high surface area carbon electrode under the realistic conditions with a much higher (>50%) overall carbon conversion efficiency and demonstrate a way to reduce the disposal costs of the food waste stream by more than 40% compared to conventional anaerobic digestion.
Project Methods
A combination of experimental and modelling approach will be adopted for optimizing the proposed food waste valorization process. A predictive model for estimating the yield and quality of hydrochar from various food waste will be developed. Once the entire process is optimized, a scale up study through process simulation will be conducted. The process parameters will be used for developing techno-economic model to understand the economic viability of the proposed process in comparison to existing food waste valorization methods. The life cycle assessment analyses will inform the greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impacts of the project.The project success will be evaluated against the stated project objectives and by comparing with the target cost of food waste handling. The quality of produced high surface area carbon will be analyzed by characterizing its energy storage properties via supercapacitor fabrication.We will demonstrate the entire integrated operation for food waste conversion to high surface area carbon material under the realistic conditions with a much higher (>50%) overall carbon conversion efficiency and demonstrate a way to reduce the disposal costs of the food waste stream by more than 40% compared to conventional anaerobic digestion.The scientific outcomes from this project will be disseminated to scientific audiences through peer-reviewed publications and conference presentations/posters. Whereas outreach activities including 2-days workshop and community engagements proposed in this project will help educating local communities, pre-college students, and industry stakeholders.

Progress 07/01/24 to 06/30/25

Outputs
Target Audience:Following audiences were reached in last one year: Six wastewater treatment plants and a startup company through technical presentations and discussions about the relevance of this project for their industry and possibility of technology translation for real applications. Professional societies such as Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP), Water Environment Federation (WEF), Virginia Water Environment Association (VWEA), and American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Several graduate and undergraduate students were engaged for their hands on experiences and laboratory training under this project. Changes/Problems:Organisms other than T. striatum are being tested for degradation of pollutants in aqueous phase produced during the hydrothermal carbonization of food waste.This is being plannedbecause T. striatum was observed in a previous study to not grow well in some wastewaters unless the wastewater was highly diluted. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? A total of 4 PhD, 2 MS, and 1 undergraduate student were trained across all the participating institutions in this project. Training involved laboratory experiments, analysis, data interpretation, and thesis writing. Additionally, these students got opportunities to develop their soft skills by participating in professional conferences, posters, and manuscripts preparation. The team plans to engage high school students in summer for their research projects and internship experiences in a university setting. These students will learn food waste valorization, circular economy, and energy storage topics. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? The results have been disseminated through submitting a manuscript in Energy Storage journal. It is under review for publication. The team members have presented research outcomes at national and regional confereneces through oral and poster presentations. Six wastewater treatment industries have been reached out to share the project outcomes. Two startup companies have been engaged in the discussion for the possibility of technology translation. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Complete the predictive modeling task for estimating the product yields produced by hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) of food waste. Disseminate the predictive modeling work through journal publications and conference presentations. Hydrochar samples produced via HTC will be chemically activated and thermally treated to generate porous carbon (POC) material. POC material will be characterized by FTIR, BET surface area analyzer and other analytical methods. POC will be made into working electrode and tested for electrochemical performance. It will also be made into an asymmetric supercapacitor with suitable opposite electrode material and tested for energy storage. COD is only one of the parameters to measure the efficiency of the organism to degrade HTCWW. Consumption of other components, such as total organic carbon (TOC), total N, and total ammonium nitrogen will be measured using tested organisms.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Developed kinetic and statistical approaches for predicting the yields and properties of products from the conversion of food waste. Developed a process of producing hard carbon from white bread using supercritical organic solvents followed by a novel heat treatment method. Characterized the physio-chemical properties of the produced hard carbon. The hard carbon produced by this process has around 1000-2000 m2/g of specific surface area. The studies continue to explore the application of hard carbon is electrodes for electric double layer capacitors or sodium ion batteries. Through the electrochemical test, we will analyze the potential of this material for the electrode material. Biological treatment of the food waste-derived aqueous phase is being studied. The literature review required to kick-start the ongoing experiment of maximizing the growth of T. striatum is completed. Progress in the biological treatment objectives are: The COD removal efficiency of T. striatum between a well plate (limited oxygenated condition) and a flask with a silicon cover (aerated condition) was experimented, where the media in the aerated condition (in the flask) had more than twice the COD reduction in 7 days compared to that in the well plate. The substrate used was prehydrolyzate prepared from alkaline hemp pretreated at 1% sodium hydroxide for 1 h at 130°C. The media was treated with the supplement mix, removing one supplement at a time from the full mix using the supplement media and screening technique used in Liu et al. (2024), and COD removal was observed. On 10th day, phosphorus was found to be imperative for COD removal capacity of T. striatum while removal of iron and calcium was found to boost its capacity even more than full supplement. The media with no supplement and that with full supplement were observed to remove COD in approximately the same amount. The substrate used was hemp prehydrolyzate as previously mentioned. 4 different organisms, including T. striatum, were inoculated into 50% diluted HTCWW (prepared from hemp heated at 250°C for 2 h) and their COD removal capacity were observed under two different pH (unadjusted ie. pH 3.82 and adjusted ie. pH 7.0). On the 7th day, media with all four organisms in balanced pH showed up to about 39% COD removal, while those with unadjusted pH were not observed to remove COD. Simulated food waste was treated with hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) at 250°C for 2 hours in a high temperature high pressure reactor to obtain hydrochar. It was activated with potassium hydroxide and thermally treated to obtain porous carbon (POC). 8. The POC carbon was analyzed by FTIR, BET surface area analyzer, and scanning and transmission electron microscopy. The POC was then used with opposite electrode material to fabricate asymmetric supercapacitors, which were tested for electrochemical energy storage characteristics. 10. The food waste-derived POC working electrode exhibited a capacitance of 77-112 F/g at current densities ranging from 0.5 to 3 A/g. 11. A manuscript has been submitted to the Energy Storage journal, which is currently under review.

Publications

  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: Isamu Umeda, Ujjwal Pokharel, James Lee, Rajesh Shende, and Sandeep Kumar; High Value Carbon Materials from Biochar and Hydrochar, USDA sponsored 2024 Hydrochar and Biochar Conference, South Dakota Mines, July 26-28, 2024.
  • Type: Other Status: Under Review Year Published: 2025 Citation: Khang Huynh, Isamu Umeda, Bharath Maddipudi, Anuradha Shende, Sandeep Kumar, and Rajesh Shende, Porous carbon derived from food waste for asymmetric supercapacitor, Energy Storage (06/06/2025, revised manuscript submitted)
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2025 Citation: Li C., Wang J.F., Kumar S., Umeda I., Wang Z.W. (2025). The Advantages of Granular Sludge in Treating Hydrothermal Liquefaction Wastewater: A Bench to Pilot Study [Poster presentation]. AEESP 2025 Research and Education Conference. May 20-22, Durham, NC
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2025 Citation: Li C., Wang J.F., Kumar S., Umeda I., Wang Z.W. (2025) The Advantages of Granular Sludge in Treating Hydrothermal Liquefaction Wastewater: A Bench to Pilot Study [Poster presentation]. WEF Joint Conference: Residuals & Biosolids and Innovations in Treatment Technology. May 6-9, Baltimore, MD.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: Li C., Wang J.F., Liu M., Zheng Y., Kumar S., Umeda I., Wang Z.W. (2024), Municipal Activated Sludge as a Highly Efficient Treatment Method for Hydrothermal Liquefaction Wastewater. WaterJAM 2024, September 9-12, Virginia Beach, VA (3rd Place Award).