Research Overview

We live in a world facing serious energy, environment, and food challenges. Scientific and social communities are progressively seeking solutions to these challenges. The new solutions must be integrated and consider all of the challenges we are encountering. The system approach is particularly important in the area of waste/residues treatment and utilization, where the processes must be balanced with greenhouse-gas emission, water usage, food production, and other local environmental and societal concerns. Therefore, our research goal is to develop environmentally benign systems to effectively utilize wastes/residues and wastewater for fuel/chemical production and water reclamation, with a specific aim of making scientific and technological advances to meet the emerging demand of a renewable resource based economy. Four specific research topics are carried out to realize the research goal:

• Integrated biorefining

• Algae and carbon capture

• Advanced anaerobic digestion

• Wastewater treatment and utilization

System Approach

1. Solar-bio-powered unit; 2. Solar-bio-nano-based wastewater utilization system; 3. Large-scale algal open-pond algal cultivation; 4. advanced bioprocessing; 5. Post-treatment of water reclamation; 6. Demonstration plug flow anaerobic digester; 7. Organic residues from agricultural operations; 8. Organic residues from municipal and food operations