Project 1 (Year 2022): Production of hazardous-woody-fuel-derived soil amendment

 

California faces the challenge of destructive wildfires every year due to the poor forest management as well as the global warming effect. Tree trimming and man-made firebreak (fuel break) to reduce hazardous woody fuel are efficient methods to slow or stop the progress of wildfires but generate lots of woody biomass. Hence, sustainable methods for handling hazardous woody fuel biomass are highly needed. Pyrolysis is a well-developed process that can decompose carbonaceous materials at elevated temperature under anoxic conditions to produce biochar as a soil amendment. However, there is no comprehensive study regarding the pyrolysis of all the hazardous woody fuel types (e.g. chaparral, sage, oak, conifer) in the California’s fire regime ecoregions. On the other hand, soil moisture retention is always a challenge for California’s agriculture during hot seasons. Hence, the resulting hazardous-woody-fuel-derived biochar can be a good soil amendment for California’s crops.

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Project 2 (Year 2024): Synergistic treatment of cow manure processing products

 

Sustainable methods for handling huge amounts of cow manure are highly demanded in California. Anaerobic digestion of cow manure is a commercialized biological process for energy recovery that produces the precursor (biogas) of renewable natural gas. However, in addition to CH4, biogas contains a high volumetric concentration of CO2 that can be over 40%. CO2 lowers the energy content of biogas, so biogas requires further upgrading to meet natural gas standards. Moreover, the anaerobic digestion process produces remnants, separated solids and digestate, which are used for bedding material and irrigation, respectively. But these remnants still contain harmful pathogens. Hence, a novel synergistic reforming process will be investigated to reduce the CO2 in biogas and to stabilize remnants simultaneously.

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Project 3 (Year 2025): Steam Reforming of Agriculture-Derived Wastewater and Solid Waste for Energy Recovery

 

The Central Valley of California is one of the world's most productive agricultural regions and many Central Valley’s counties (e.g., Kern) are at the top of the nation's agriculture producing counties. Accordingly, a huge number of agricultural wastes such as corn stover, orchard pruning, and manure is generated regionally. Conventional disposal methods of agricultural wastes include open burning of green residues and land application of livestock manure. However, these methods lead to air quality issues and contamination of ground water. In addition, the Central Valley is home to the largest concentration of dairies in California, which has the largest milk producer in the United States. The high strength of dairy wastewater influent is always a challenge to traditional wastewater treatment processes. Hence, this research project will focus on the development of a new process for synergistic treatment of agricultural wastes and dairy wastewater for energy recovery.