SBIR-STTR Award

The agricultural sector accounted for approximately 31 percent of total US methane emissions and is a major source of C02 emissions. The Environmental Protection Agency, state, and local regulators are imposing new restrictions on confinement production facilities because of odors and the emission of greenhouse gases. The Phase I research project will determine the feasibility of collecting greenhouse gas emissions from swine confinement facilities and converting it into a feedstock for production of biomass in a photobioreactor. Phase II research will involve the development and testing of a prototype "bioair" collection, processing, and photobioreactor system. Phase I research will involve collection of "bioair" gases from a swine production facility and utilizing micro algae cultures at Argonne National Laboratory for bioprocessing the livestock gases feedstock. In Phase II a photobioreactor will be developed to convert the bioair feedstock into a valuable biomass source for use as a feed protein, biomass product, or other higher value commercial product. The bioair collection, processing and photobioreactor systems will be sold beginning in Phase III to livestock confinement operations in the United States and throughout the world. The system will allow producers to address serious environmental, worker safety, and public relations problems while reducing their input costs and producing commercially marketable co-products.

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase II project will build and test a 1/30 scale prototype photo bioreactor system, which converts waste gas emissions from confinement swine facilities into algae (biomass). Large confinement production facilities account for a majority of livestock production and represent a significant source of odor and greenhouse gases as well as large quantities of solid and liquid waste. Phase I research demonstrated the ability to capture waste gases from a confinement swine facility and use it to produce micro-algae using a photo bioreactor. The research demonstrated that the algae in the photo bioreactor removed more than 90 percent of the waste gases and odors. During Phase II a 1/30-scale prototype photo bioreactor system will be built and attached to an existing swine confinement facility. The system will be tested using a variety of media and algae or photo organism species during the Phase II research. If successful a full scale demonstration unit will be built and tested in Phase III with sales of the system following. The system will address a serious environmental problem while reducing operating costs for swine producers by providing a feed supplement, algae biomass, and creating the potential to extract valuable co-products from the micro-algae. The initial market for the bioair photobioreactor will be large swine operations. Pro Edge, a large swine producer, has agree to purchase the first demonstration unit and plans to purchase an additional 100 to 300 systems if they work as anticipated. While sales of the system will generate revenue, the ultimate goal is to extract high value components from the algae for use in pharmaceuticals, pigments, carbohydrates, and other chemical products. The market for these products is estimated to be approximately $6 billion in 2000.