Coffee Waste Gasification Brewing Up Energy in U.S.

04 January 2012

The University of North Dakota's Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) is leading a project to efficiently generate electricity from the gasification of coffee processing wastes.

According to the EERC it is working with South Burlington, Vermont based energy solutions company Wynntryst LL to develop a gasification power system to utilize the waste from a coffee processing plant to produce energy.

The project specifically focuses on the waste from the Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR) plant in Waterbury, Vermont - a client of Wynntryst and best known for its Keurig brand of individual coffee cups. The company also distributes many other coffee products to companies around the world, including Starbucks and McDonald's.

The research center said that the waste stream from the facility includes coffee residues, plastic packaging, paper, cloth or burlap, and plastic cups.

"This project is an extension of work performed by the EERC for NASA, which explored the conversion of waste from a space station and future Martian and lunar bases into heat and power," explained deputy associate director for research Chris Zygarlicke.

According to the Zygarlicke the project will similarly utilise a "mostly renewable" and bio-based waste and convert it into electricity for the coffee industry.

Project manager and research scientist, Nikhil Patel added: "The first step of the project is to demonstrate that we can gasify the complex mixture of waste and produce clean synthetic gas, or syngas, by utilising the EERC's novel advanced fixed-bed gasifier (AFBG) system on the biomass-residue mixture."

The EERC said that once the waste stream has been successfully gasifed the syngas will then either be utilised in an internal combustion engine or a fuel cell for the production of electricity and heat, or be converted to high-value biofuels or chemicals.

According to the researchers, pilot-scale tests will evaluate the quality of syngas that can be produced from the Green Mountain waste and the technology will be fine tuned to meet the highest possible environmental standards.

The EERC said that it will use the outcome of the pilot-scale efforts to propose a full-scale commercial demonstration system for installation at various Green Mountain sites.

EERC director Gerald Groenewold explained that the center is developing smaller-scale distributed gasification technologies as a means for converting biomass to renewable energy, and claimed that this project is an example of how it can adapt that technology to meet the needs of different markets.

"The EERC system has already produced power by gasifying forest residues, railroad tie chips, turkey litter, and other biomass feedstocks and burning the produced syngas in an on-site engine generator. The coffee industry residues will be similarly tested," concluded Zygarlicke.


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