Organic Waste Lifecycles at the Interface of Food, Energy, Water Systems
In 2019, the National Science Foundation awarded funding to Ohio University and its partners for a multidisciplinary project entitled “Organic Waste Life Cycles at the Interface of Food, Energy, and Water Systems (OWL-FEWS)”. The funding enables faculty, staff, and student researchers from Ohio University’s Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Service, in partnership with the Russ College of Engineering and Technology and Florida Institute of Technology, to explore the interactions between food, water, energy, and waste systems through new technologies, systems design, and policy tools to better serve community economic needs while improving the environment.
This project was renewed in 2024 with following team of PIs:
- Dr. Sarah C. Davis, Professor, OHIO Voinovich School. Dr. Davis’ research expertise is in energy bioscience, ecosystem ecology, nutrient cycling, and plant physiology. Her research group is characterizing the chemical composition of food waste streams and assessing the fuel and nutrient yields from anaerobic digestion of different food waste compositions.
- Dr. Natalie Kruse Daniels, Professor, Environmental Studies, OHIO Voinovich School. Dr. Kruse Daniels’ research expertise is in watershed characterization, mine water treatment, watershed-scale planning, and stream restoration. Her laboratory is testing the use of hydrochar made from organic waste materials as a water treatment media for metal-rich mine water and the potential to use the spent water treatment media as a soil amendment.
- Dr. Toufiq Reza, Associate Professor, Chemical Engineering, Department of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering and Sciences, Florida Institute of Technology. The Reza Research Group is performing two major tasks in this project, including studying carbon capture and biogas upgrading by molecular simulation and closely-knit experiments, and converting digestate into activated hydrochar by thermochemical conversion.
- Dr. Jay Wilhelm, Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering, OHIO Russ College of Engineering and Technology. Dr. Wilhelm has research expertise in smart sensor systems, autonomy, RFID embedded sensing, wildlife behavior monitoring, and intelligent systems. His work involves instrumenting a compost bin to detect the state of decay and estimate if any non-biological substances have been deposited such that post-processing of organic waste can be custom tailored for maximum breakdown.
To learn more about the project, contact Dr. Sarah Davis.
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 2529592.
Associated publications:
Davis SC, Maynard FG, Jenkins D, Herman T, Reza MT. 2024. Potential for improving nutrient use efficiencies of human food systems with a circular economy of organic wastes and fertilizer. Environmental Research Letters, 19 093002; DOI 10.1088/1748-9326/ad6617.
Herman T, Nungesser E, Miller KE, Davis SC. 2022. Comparative fuel yield from anaerobic digestion of emerging food and brewery systems. Energies 15: 1538 https://doi.org/10.3390/en15041538
Miller K, Herman T, Philipinanto D, Davis SC.2021. Anaerobic digestion of food waste, brewery waste, and agricultural residues in an off-grid continuous reactor. Sustainability 13, https://doi.org/10.3390/su13126509.
Adjuik T, Rodjom AM, Miller KE, Reza MT, Davis SC. 2020. Application of hydrochar, digestate, and synthetic fertilizer to a Miscanthus x giganteus crop: Implications for biomass and greenhouse gas emissions. Applied Sciences 10: article 8953; doi:10.3390/app10248953.
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