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Renewable
Energy Research and Development
The UGA Biorefining and Carbon Cycling Center
UGA Site Georgia’s First Biorefinery
On Whitehall
Road in Athens, two buildings among the pines adjacent to the forest and
across from the pastoral UGA stables represent a visionary commitment
of UGA Engineering Outreach to public-private technology partnerships.
The high-bay space for the pyrolysis refinery equipment, the most promising
technology in a generation for reducing global warming and our dependence
on fossil fuels, is abutted by classrooms and office space, demonstrating
the interrelationship of research, instruction and outreach that is the
story of the site’s evolution. With the creation of the Georgia Research
Alliance (GRA), and subsequently programs for building research facilities
and equipment for generating new technology and technology transfer to
assist Georgia’s traditional industries, a new opportunity arose:
to address comprehensively the need to reduce the amount of waste going
to lined landfills and the potential new industrial uses for biomass in
Georgia. In 1997, when construction on the UGA Bioconversion Research
and Education Center (BREC) was completed, solid waste disposal in the
state was a primary problem that required immediate solutions. Some proponents
envisioned this might also unleash long-term economic development potential.
Aerial view
of the UGA Bioconversion research and Education Center
In minimizing landfill volume, the easiest materials to exclude, yard
trimmings and storm debris, were identified. But once they were separated,
alternative means were needed to process these materials. “One of
the drawbacks for handling, processing, storing and transporting biological
materials is their low bulk-density,” says Tom Adams, Director of
the UGA Engineering Outreach Service. “It’s not economical to
transport these materials long distances,” he explains. Cities and
communities all across the state were looking for a way to decrease the
volume of these materials, and composting was the natural answer. “By
composting, which reduces the volume of dry biological materials by half,
you suddenly have a material that is desirable, used by homeowners, the
green industry and farmers,” says Adams. So with one answer to the
solid waste problem in the state, the potential of creating new value-added
products from biomass was realized.
With support from the GRA, UGA’s engineering faculty connected the
environmental concerns with economic development needs of the state to
cement the idea of the Bioconversion Research and Education Center. “Engineering
faculty envisioned a unique, statewide bioconversion program and the innovative
GRA initiatives provided the funding,” says Faculty of Engineering
Director Dale Threadgill. With traditional industries in Georgia –
forest products, pulp and paper, food processing, textiles and carpet
– at a crossroads, the time was right for UGA Engineering Outreach
to establish to prototype, test and transfer enabling technologies. Since
its inception in 1997, the Bioconversion Center has been a resource for
the state’s bioconversion efforts focusing on composting technology
and innovative bioproducts development. In the meanwhile, the potential
for biomass has grown up around a crop of urgent environmental and energy
concerns, working its way into cutting-edge research and the private sector
search for profitable new green technologies.
Biomass as a resource for producing fuel, soil amendments and a variety
of useful products is analogous to petroleum. These primary and secondary
products from biomass can be realized in much the same way as the tens
of thousands of petroleum products have been through a biorefinery.
“Although the funding for the facility came to the University with
the mission that we would develop the solid waste technology to support
industries, municipalities and agriculture in the state – the needs
have broadened to biomass in general,” says K.C. Das, who was the
lead engineer in designing the Center facilities and the bioconversion
program, is the Center’s director. To pursue the development of technology
for producing a variety of bio-products, in 2001 a consortium was established
between Clark Atlanta University, Georgia Tech and Eprida. A small company
in Blakely, Georgia, Eprida had adapted technology developed at the DOE
National Renewable Energy Lab using pyrolysis to produce hydrogen from
biomass and advanced it to the pre-commercial stage. The group came to
Athens looking for a more central location and new partners for a scale-up
of the project. By scaling up the operation, Eprida could demonstrate
that it would be effective at producing value-added bio-products, particularly
hydrogen.
Identified as one of the highest priorities by Georgia’s biomass
producing industries, the consortium’s projects for developing scale-up
technology are the initial thrust of its biorefinery research. Research
plans are being developed with Georgia forest products and other biomass
industries through the Georgia Industrial Technology Partnership (GITP),
an organization of industry, government and academia headed and administered
by the UGA Engineering Outreach Service.
Bringing Nano to Biomass
With UGA
engineering taking the lead, suddenly this technology’s commercial
uses could be taken further. Chemistry Professor John Stickney, a member
of the Faculty of Engineering, held a key to that connection: fuel cell
technology to use the hydrogen from a functional biorefinery.
Hydrogen, one of the many potential products of the biorefinery, is a
key input for producing electrical power when used in fuel cells. However,
current limitations prevent it from becoming a commercially viable alternative
source for energy. One important need in this area is to improve fuel
cell electrode surfaces to optimize catalysis and minimize the amount
of precious metal needed, thereby reducing the cost. Ideally a nanometer
of a structured catalytic alloy could be formed on a less expensive substrate
metal, achieving the cost savings and increasing the efficiency of conversion.
The UGA patented ElectroChemical Atomic Layer Epitaxy (EC-ALE) method
provides atomic layer control for ion growth of potentials. This provides
the necessary control for systematic investigations of structures and
alloys while enabling scale-up for commercialization. “Electro-chemists
have an interface between a metal electrode and a solution,” says
John Stickney, whose method of electrochemical deposition of atomic layers
both predates and succeeds his work on compound semi-conductors. His collaboration
at the scale-up stage is one of many growing links of new scientific research
with engineering at UGA, significant evidence that engineering holds the
key for reaffirming the university’s land grant mission.
“The infrastructure is there to shift the focus of some of Georgia’s
traditional industries and re-invigorate rural economies throughout the
state,” says Threadgill. The Engineering Outreach Service and the
Center for Agribusiness and Economic Development will organize the technology
transfer, training, business service and promotions to foster rural economic
development using the technology once the bio-refinery is functional.
Part of the charge behind the biorefinery is to produce fuel and add value
to the abundant biological resources in Georgia; another part is demonstrating
that producing hydrogen can be done safely, efficiently and profitably.
These two aspects will enable traditional industries to embrace this new
technology and create jobs that will remain in the state.
“This is truly processing at the molecular level,” Adams says
of the biomass pyrolysis refining technology, “and with the biorefinery,
the promise and potential of the BREC will be advanced.”
Tours of
the biorefinery site are available for interested media. Inquiries
here.
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