SBIR Phase I: Biomass to Energy Conversion

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project is that it holds the promise of significantly reducing the over fertilization of crop fields with poultry litter and at the same time provide poultry farmers with greater profits. Currently poultry litter (excrement, feathers, bedding and other waste) is used as fertilizer on crop fields. The litter is excessively high in phosphorous which is not well adsorbed by crops and ends up in waterways causing excessive algae growth resulting in dead zones with no aquatic life. This project expects to prove the practicality of a high efficiency burn system that is low enough in cost to be affordable by individual farmers. The system will burn poultry litter and convert the resulting heat energy to electricity and hot water for heating the farmer's chicken houses. The energy savings will increase farmer's net profits (including the amortized cost of the system) by, on average, 25%. Thus poultry farmers will be incentivized to eliminate environmentally dangerous poultry litter by converting their farm waste to energy. This SBIR Phase I project proposes to design, produce and test a scaled prototype version of the lab test system. The lab test system is expected to provide burn efficiencies as high as ~97% with particulate emissions well within EPA standards. The scaled system will be designed to process ten times the litter as the lab system. The primary question this SBIR project will answer is: can the lab results be replicated in a full scale system capable of handling the requirements of an average poultry farm. The patent pending technology upon which the lab system was designed uses computer controlled fuel (poultry litter) feed rates coupled with a multilevel air injection system to produce optimal efficiency. There are several variables that will be tested to ensure upscaling the size will be successful. These include combustion chamber size and design, air injection locations, pressures and CFM, and fuel feed rates. Successful commercialization will require optimization of these variables in a full scale system. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.