Waste products are turning out to be a goldmine for researchers at the City University of Hong Kong, with their newly developed biorefinery that utilises enzymes secreted by fungi to transform coffee grounds and food waste to essential ingredients for the manufacture of various everyday products. Additionally, Airbus recently announced a partnership with Tsinghua University in China to transform used cooking oil to aviation biofuel. Read more

In Waste Management World (30 August 2012):

A new ‘biorefinery’ intended to transform biowaste into key building blocks for the manufacture of renewable plastics, laundry detergents and scores of other everyday products has been successfully tested using waste from Starbucks in Hong Kong.

A report on the project – launched in cooperation with the Starbucks restaurant chain (NASDAQ: SBUX), which was seeking a use for spent coffee grounds and stale bakery goods – was made the 244th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.

“Our new process addresses the food waste problem by turning Starbucks’ trash into treasure – detergent ingredients and bio-plastics that can be incorporated into other useful products,” explained Carol S. K. Lin, Ph.D., who led the research team at the City University of Hong Kong.

The idea took shape during a meeting last summer between representatives of the nonprofit organisation called The Climate Group and Lin at her laboratory at the City University of Hong Kong.

The Climate Group reportedly asked Lin about applying her transformative technology, called a biorefinery, to the wastes of one of its members – Starbucks Hong Kong. To help jump-start the research, Starbucks donated a portion of the proceeds from each purchase of its “Care for Our Planet Cookies” gift set.

A new kind of biorefinery

According to Lin her team already had experience in developing the technology needed to do it – a so-called biorefinery, which can convert plant-based materials into a range of ingredients for biofuels and other products.

“We are developing a new kind of biorefinery, a food biorefinery, and this concept could become very important in the future, as the world strives for greater sustainability,” added Lin.

“Using corn and other food crops for bio-based fuels and other products may not be sustainable in the long-run. Concerns exist that this approach may increase food prices and contribute to food shortages in some areas of the world. Using waste food as the raw material in a biorefinery certainly would be an attractive alternative,” she continued.

Lin went on to describe the food biorefinery process, which involves blending the baked goods with a mixture of fungi that excrete enzymes to break down carbohydrates in the food into simple sugars. The blend then goes into a fermenter where bacteria convert the sugars into succinic acid.

Succinic acid topped a U.S. Department of Energy list of 12 key materials that could be produced from sugars and that could be used to make high-value products – everything from laundry detergents to plastics to medicines.

Added benefits

In addition to providing a sustainable source of succinic acid, the new technology could have numerous environmental benefits, said Lin.

For example, Hong Kong produces nearly 5000 tonnes of used grounds every year. Currently, this waste is incinerated, composted or disposed of in landfills. Lin’s process could potentially convert these piles of foul-smelling waste into useful products.

Additionally, Lin claimed that the carbon dioxide that is produced is reused during the biorefining process, and that because succinic acid and its products (such as bio-plastics) are made using bakery waste as a renewable feedstock, they are sustainable alternatives to products made using petroleum.

The method isn’t just for bakery waste – Lin said she has also successfully transformed food wastes from her university’s cafeteria and other mixed food wastes into useful substances with the technology.

According to Lin the process could become commercially viable on a much larger scale with additional funding from investors.

“In the meantime, our next step is to use funding we have from the Innovation and Technology Commission from the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to scale up the process,” she said. “Other funding has been applied to test this idea in a pilot-scale plant in Germany.”

The scientists acknowledged support from the Innovation and Technology Commission in Hong Kong, as well as a grant from the City University of Hong Kong.

Source:  www.waste-management-world.com

In Waste Management World (30 August 2012):

Airbus Partnership to Develop Biofuels from Waste Cooking Oil in China

Toulouse, France based aircraft manufacturer, Airbus – a subsidiary of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS.PA) – has teamed up with Tsinghua University in China to complete a sustainability analysis for converting a number of feedstocks, including waste cooking oil, into aviation fuel.

According to the aircraft manufacturer the project will evaluate how best to support the development of a value chain to speed up the commercialisation of aviation bio-fuels.

The company added that the value chain aims to produce and to promote the use of aviation biofuel in China, the world’s fastest growing aviation market.

In phase one, the partnership said that it is assessing suitable feedstocks that comply with ecological, economic and social sustainability criteria. The sustainability analysis is managed by Airbus and involves close collaboration with Tsinghua and leading European institutions.

In phase two the partners will narrow down the most promising alternative fuel solutions. The first results are expected to be analysed in the second half of this year.

The partners’ stated goal is to select a number of feedstocks including used cooking oil (which would otherwise be waste) and also algae. By the beginning of 2013, the full sustainability analysis should have been completed.

Following this the partners said that they will look at scaling up the alternative fuel production process to achieve sustainable quantities of aviation fuel for commercial use.

“The commercialisation of alternative fuels is one of the essential ingredients in our quest to achieving ambitious environmental targets in aviation,” explained Frederic Eychenne, Airbus New Energies programme manager.

“The project will help us improve the understanding of the nature of aviation biofuels commercialisation in China, identify the opportunities and challenges, and evaluate the possibility of social, economic, market and technology change and its cost, obstacles and challenges,” added Project manager, professor Zhang Xiliang, director of the Institute of Energy, Environment and Economy at Tsinghua University.

The partnership agreement is one of the initiatives to develop a complete sustainable aviation biofuel production capability in China, using only sustainable resources, and is part of the Airbus goal to have in place a value chain in every continent by 2012.

Airbus said that thus far it has value chains in Latin America, Australia, Europe, the Middle East, and with the Chinese value chain, Asia.

Source: www.waste-management-world.com