Publication Summary

Organic Waste to Resources Research and Pilot Project Report. Great public and development interest exists in potential use of biofuel for transportation. The goal of this project was to evaluate possibilities converting food waste to biohydrogen and yeast as biodiesel feedstock through biological processing. The project results contribute to technology development and technical data for policy making in developing Washington′s bioeconomy using the available low-cost organic resources. A two-step process was developed in this project as a potential technology to produce hydrogen and biodiesel feedstock using the food waste. The first step of this process is dark fermentative hydrogen production, in which the fermentative bacteria use glucose derived from waste carbon to produce hydrogen and volatile fatty acids (VFA; e.g. acetate or butyrate). One third of the carbon is converted to carbon dioxide in the first-step while two thirds of the carbon is converted to VFA. In the second step, carbon in the form of VFA is used to feed yeast for simultaneous carbon sequestration and production of biodiesel feedstock from the oil-enriched microbial biomass. The work conducted in this project proved the concept with laboratory scale experiments. Further study needs to be conducted to scale up this process and assess its economical viability.

The Washington State Department of Ecology provided funding for this project through the Beyond Waste Organics Waste to Resources (OWR) project. These funds were provided in the 2007-2009 Washington State budget from the Waste Reduction Recycling and Litter Control Account. OWR project goals and objectives were developed by the Beyond Waste Organics team, and were approved by the Solid Waste and Financial Assistance Program. Funding was from the Waste Reduction Recycling and Litter Control Account. OWR project goals and objectives were developed by the Beyond Waste Organics team, and were approved by the Solid Waste and Financial Assistance Program.