Project Grant 83508201

This $800,000 Project Grant awarded by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program, will develop a robust and scalable processing platform for converting food waste into high surface area carbon materials for use in supercapacitors. The project will apply a hydrothermal carbonization method to capture the organic carbon from food waste, and then thermochemically activate the resulting hydrochar to produce high...

This $2.4 million project grant from the US Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture's Bioproduct Pilot Program (CFDA #10.236) supports the development of a modular bioprocessing system to produce bioplastics from food waste. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University will lead a consortium including Quasar Energy Group LLC, University of Missouri System, and Iowa State University to establish a 100-liter scale pilot facility. Over three years, the team...

This National Science Foundation (NSF) Project Grant award under the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (CFDA 47.075) program provides $367,243 to the University of California, Davis to research changes in municipal waste management systems necessary to increase the use of compost in agriculture and food production. The key products and services to be delivered include: Quantifying the spatial scale of municipal organic waste management systems across the United States. Analyzing the...

The Environmental Protection Agency Region 4 awarded Florida Atlantic University a $195,426 cooperative agreement under the Solid Waste Management Assistance Grants program (CFDA 66.808) for a three-year period from May 1, 2021 to April 30, 2024. Under this award, Florida Atlantic University will develop the scientific foundation for a regional organics diversion model utilizing excess capacity at local wastewater treatment anaerobic digesters. The university will measure key organic waste...

This $1.5 million Project Grant from the National Science Foundation Office of International Science and Engineering (NSF OISE) will fund the development of a climate-resilient and sustainable food production system utilizing controlled environment hydroponic agriculture with novel wastewater treatment and reuse technologies. Led by Clemson University in collaboration with universities in South Korea, the award will support five key activities over a two-year period from January 2023 to December...

This $127,687 project grant, awarded by the National Science Foundation's Engineering program (CFDA 47.041), is funding research at West Virginia University to develop a data-driven framework for promoting sustainable resource recovery from organic waste in rural agricultural regions. The overarching goal is to leverage data science, life cycle modeling, and policy analysis to enable the implementation of resource recovery technologies that can convert organic waste streams like animal manure...

The University of California, Davis will demonstrate a system for biomass recycling and creation of ammonia fertilizer to optimize its existing digester system under a $299,627 cooperative agreement from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The project addresses the EPA's Solid Waste Management Assistance Grants program, which promotes integrated solid waste management solutions. UC Davis will accept food waste to test innovative infrastructure for renewable natural gas conversion and...

The National Science Foundation Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems awarded a $245,000 Project Grant to the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology to conduct a collaborative research project on "Mechanistic Study of Mesoporous Carbon Formation from Food Waste." The goal of the 3-year project is to develop a novel 2-stage process to convert food waste into high-value mesoporous carbon materials that can be used to fabricate electrodes for...

This $500,000 Project Grant award from the USDA's Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program to Michigan State University (MSU) aims to revolutionize the efficiency and sustainability of thermal food processing. MSU will develop a Cyber-Physical System (CPS) and reduced-order modeling techniques to enable real-time optimization of food drying and cooking processes, with the goal of significantly reducing associated energy use and carbon emissions. The research will validate these...

This Project Grant award from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (AFRI program, CFDA 10.310) provides $875,000 to develop a new decentralized system that integrates wastewater treatment with hydroponic farming. The research aims to produce vegetables efficiently using minimal resources and energy, by implementing advanced methods for real-time data collection and system control. The project leverages innovative sensors, wastewater treatment,...