Project Title: INFEWS:US-China: Collaborative Research: Investigating the role of wet wastes in the global circular economy: sustainable conversion to products using hydrothermal carbonization
Funded By: National Science Foundation (NSF)
PI: Dr. Nicole Berge
Co-PI: Dr. Joseph Flora (UofSC); Dr. Ramesh Goel (U of Utah); Lubo Liu (Cal State-Fresno)
Dr. Berge is leading a team of researchers on a project that focuses on exploring the role food production-related wastes may play in a circular economy. This work, a collaborative project between the University of South Carolina-Columbia, the University of Utah, California State University Fresno, and Nanjing Agricultural University in China, will be conducted to determine whether extracting, reusing resources, and creating products of value from wet food-production wastes using a process called hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) is a more sustainable and economically viable approach than traditionally used processes. This work will advance the science and technology needed to: (1) improve fundamental knowledge associated with the link between waste properties, HTC process conditions, and HTC-generated product characteristics to promote sustainable and successful integration within the FEW systems, (2) systematically evaluate how HTC-generated products can be recycled to minimize anticipated challenges in FEW systems, including soil health, microbial population dynamics, and energy and water scarcity, and (3) develop implementation strategies for global application of the CE model under various scenarios by using life cycle assessment (LCA) and technoeconomic analysis (TEA) modeling. Results from this work will determine the ability of a waste conversion technique to make a significant impact in reducing reliance on dwindling virgin resource consumption.
More information can be found at: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1902419&HistoricalAwards=false