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Domestic edible waste disposal
has always been a major social service provided by cities and
communities in general. Availability of waste dumps at which these
wastes can be disposed have even occasionally caused rifts between
cities and states. An alternative means of disposal that alleviate
these difficulties while also paying for itself is achievable
through the use of edible waste recycle biotechnology converting the
waste into fuel. A
portable energy biotechnology process, however,
has been advanced for the conversion of
lactose into ethanol
which
can be used as fuel for automobile, home-heating or what have you.
Effectively a biotechnology process efficacious for the recycle of
domestic edible waste is derived from the adaptation of the energy
bioprocess.
The core technology of the energy
bioprocess that requires this needed specialization, however,
is the lactose fermentation bioreactor; and such can be accomplished
by the deployment of bioreactor, obtaining from the efficacious
modification of the lactose fermentation reactor or the substitution
of a more specialized bioreactor, capable of effecting the waste
recycle. The approach of choice which is the latter derives from the
implicit specification imposed by the standard components of a
domestic waste that needs to be recycled.
Domestic edible waste on the
average consists of four groups of foods:
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Starch and [organic] Sugar
wastes
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Cellulosic wastes,
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Protein and Meat wastes
-
Dairy wastes
Starch and or organic sugar
products are the potatoes and rice and the fruit juices that squeeze
out of the fruits remnants; the cellulosic waste are the scraps and
cut-offs of the salads and spinaches and other green vegetables; the
protein and meats are explicitly self-descriptive, and the dairy
products which include milk and cheese are also
self-descriptive. Generally, these wastes are also not separated
into type-bins hence the treatment of these wastes for recycle must
be such as to support the recycle of the mixed waste.
Consequent on the observation
about waste handling, the
specification of the bioreactor, therefore, is the capability to
simultaneously recycle if not all these then most of them.
Obviously, the substrate mixture is expected to consists of starch,
cellulose, dairy products, and proteinous products, and the
cell-functions enhancement substances, required to support the
metabolic reactions. By this specification, conceptually, a multi
stacked packed-biofilm-bed batch reactor
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with each bed beads immobilizing a specific
microbe type and fermentative-order sequenced to accomplish the
overall fermentation to fuel would
accomplish the objective.
Edible Waste Recycle
Bioreactor
A concept bioreactor,
developed for
ethanol fermentation from starch, offers promise as the base
technology for the object waste recycle bioreactor: The bioreactor, the
Multi Packed-Bed Dual-Biofilm Batch Fermentation Reactor, uses two
packed-beds with specific biofilm per bed to support the
fermentation.
This analysis therefore centers on the modification and adaptation
of the dual fermentation packed-beds to accomplish the
edible wastes recycle. Further, although protein wastes are also
usual part of the edible wastes, for the proposed changes to be
compact enough without complicated interactions, the meats waste are
left out in this design, though easily implemented.
Evidently the first task
of the development is expanding the beds count to allow for all
prospective metabolic reactions, of course, depending on the
microbes chosen for the various metabolism. Evidently the essential
metabolic reactions that must be supported are four: Starch
Metabolism, Cellulose Metabolism, Dairy Metabolism; Sugar metabolism
- the last being a product of all the others
The microbes selection without
demanding recombinant facilitation consists of
These microbes as selected
for the various initial metabolic activities, in addition to
satisfying the objects of their selection in some cases caused
additional considerations. While the sugar metabolizing microbe
produced ethanol as per the goal, and the starch metabolizing
microbe produces glucose as per the object, the other microbes
introduced a further design issues. The metabolism of cellulose by
Clostridium Cellulolyticum is not so straight forward: a measure of
recombinant facilitation is required to enable the conversion of
the cellulose into ethanol and acetate meaning that in
addition to the facilitation, additional biofilm bed has to be
included to process the acetate product; and then Clostridium
acetobutylicum in addition to metabolizing dairy waste produces not
only ethanol and butanol which are alcohols and
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therefore can used as fuel as desired, but also produces acetone,
butyric
acid, acetic acid, hydrogen and carbon dioxide, requiring that
the butyric acid production be suppressed, the acetone as well as
the acetic acid be metabolized in additional biofilm bed(s) and
preferably into alcohol. The butyrate production is readily
suppressed with the manipulation of the acid level; the acetone is
converted into isopropanol alcohol with a biofilm bed of
mixed ruminal microbes, while the acetic acid and the acetate
are metabolized into methane and carbon dioxide with a biofilm bed
of methanogenics. This last reaction however should be slight
because of the suppression of the butyric acid production by
Clostridium acetobutylicum.
Sequencing the Biofilm Beds
Because the reaction mixture
should become non-mechanically convected in an upward upwelling
annular circulating fluid dynamic within the reactor, the limiting
beds are the methanogenic bed metabolizing acetic as the
top-most and the starch metabolism bed as the bottom-most. On top of
the starch bed is the dairy bed, then is placed
the cellulose bed and the sugar bed with following sequence
- the acetic acid/acetate bed
- sugar bed
- the dairy bed
- the Cellulose bed
- the starch bed
The non-mechanical convection
of the reaction mixture - the
bubbling flow
conditions of the packed bed reactor - shall be taken advantage
of; and for that reason as with the reference bioreactor.
The reaction naturally starts
simultaneously within three beds: Starch Bed, Cellulose Bed, and
Dairy Bed. The carbon dioxide and hydrogen gases produced in the
dairy bed initiates the upwelling fluid dynamics, however, the
products of these beds are then subjected to metabolism in the two
topmost beds. Within these beds, the reactions produce more gases:
Carbon dioxide and Methane, which intensifies the fluid dynamics.
Edible Waste Disposal
Process
Wastes are ground or pulverized
and pumped into the reactor to get the process started. As a
portable process by design the recycling process proceeds unmanned.
The production of fuel from such
waste is undoubtedly a prospectively profitable venture, given the
increasing high cost of fuel, whether automobile fuel or home
heating fuel.
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MR_ROLO/1944175914 |
