|
A UWindsor scientist will lead a team of researchers on a project to generate hydrogen from low-value agricultural crops and wastes rather than valuable food sources.
Jerald Lalman, an associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, received $525,000 from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council to convert agricultural residue such as switchgrass, corn stover, wheat stalks and bagasse to hydrogen.
“We believe this could be an excellent way to produce a potential alternative energy source without having to rely on actual food crops,” Lalman said.
Switchgrass is a warm-season tall grass that grows in prairies, along roadsides and is sometimes used as an ornamental plant. Corn stover consists of leaves and stalks of corn plants left in the field after harvest. Bagasse is residue left after sugar cane is crushed.
Researchers will use steam explosion and dilute acid hydrolysis to extract valuable sugars from crops before converting them to hydrogen. Steam explosion is a processing method similar to common pressure cooking, though at higher temperatures and pressure, while dilute acid hydrolysis uses acid to break down crops in a way similar to how enzymes break down food in a human digestive system.
Once crops are reduced to sugars, they are converted to hydrogen by exposure to bacteria that, under normal circumstances, converts sugars to methane. Dr. Lalman’s project tricks sugars into producing hydrogen by the addition of vegetable oils.
Lalman is the principle investigator for the project and is working with Dr. Dan Heath, from the University of Windsor’s Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research and Dr. Nihar Biswas, a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Collaborators include Dr. Ralph Tanner from the University of Oklahoma, Dr. Peter Lau from the National Research Council, Dr. Mike Cotta from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and George Crawford of CH2M Hill, a Colorado-based global consulting and engineering corporation.
Photo: Jerald Lalman, right, watches as Subbarao Chaganti prepareing sugar solutions that will be converted into hydrogen.
|
