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Reports
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Bruce E. Rittmann, PhD Director, Center for Environmental Biotechnology The Biodesign Institute Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ |
OpenCEL Technology: Tapping the Energy Potential of WastewaterWhat kind of energy will help us reduce our dependence on coal and oil? In the USA, we have large amounts of biomass--enough to meet our energy needs today, if it were in a form we could use. This energy-laden biomass is found in waste: waste from municipal treatment plants, from industry, from agriculture, and from animals. Stinky, sloppy, and dangerous, this untapped resource winds up in landfills or rivers, but new technology from OpenCEL can help convert the waste into energy that’s as easy to use as electricity. Microorganisms are the key. They can convert biomass energy into natural gas (methane), hydrogen, ethanol, and electricity. The “trick” is to make the biomass source easy for the microorganisms to “eat.” Most of the organic matter in biomass is not easy to eat. Then, the conversion process goes slowly and is incomplete. The energy is all there in the organic material, but there’s a “wall” between the microorganisms and their “dinner.” The wall is the cell membrane. OpenCEL’s technology pokes holes in this membrane. OpenCEL’s Focused Pulse (FP) technology disrupts the cellular membrane, breaking apart the cells in the biomass so that it can be rapidly and thoroughly biodegraded. Once the organic matter is available for biodegradation, the microorganisms can convert it to an easy-to-use form of energy. OpenCEL’s FP is called an “enabling technology,” because it enables us to recover energy from the organic matter in waste.
Second, the FP process disinfects the biosolids, so that harmful pathogens – such as the infamous E. coli bacteria that infected spinach – are killed in the water or solids discharged from the processing facility. This advantage is especially important when energy conversion is carried out with human or animal wastes, which can contain pathogens. Finally, OpenCEL’s FP technology is an “elegantly simple” solution to increase the availability of and energy capture from biomass, because it does not require any complex machinery, harmful chemical additives, or hazardous materials. This differentiates FP technology from other methods of enhancing the degradability of biomass using chemical, mechanical, or thermal means. |
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OpenCEL’s FP technology offers three other important advantages. First, by making biomass more biodegradable, FP reduces the amount of residual biosolids that have to be disposed of, such as in a landfill. This offers a giant cost savings for a municipality, company, or industry that needs to deal with residual biosolids.
