|
Welcome
|
The group is
internationally recognised for its work on anaerobic digestion, both as a means
of stabilising wastes and for production of renewable energy. The focus has now
expanded to new biotechnology and biorefinery
applications. Research is
carried out at national level and also in the context of European policy,
through coordination of multidisciplinary UK and EU
projects.
The group's work on food waste digestion has been pivotal to its successful
implementation in the UK, where it is now part of the Government's waste
management and renewable energy strategy. Group members were involved in
the earliest trials using source segregated material as digester feedstock, and
carried out the research monitoring on the first full-scale digester. Recent
work has provided the rapidly growing industrial sector with operational protocols to improve biogas production and
process stability. Work in this area has adpoted a whole systems approach making
use of the
group's expertise in digestion technologies and also in the energy blanace
methods developed as part of a number of major projects (EPSRC SUE programme,
FP6 CROPGEN, RELU AD4RD and FP7 VALORGAS).
New research challenges are also presenting themselves
in carbon conversion, microbial fuel cells and algal biofuels. We are testing innovative approaches in the FP7 ALL-GAS project as
part of the EU demonstration programme for algal biofuels production, and
looking at biomethanisation of CO2 in the
EPSRC-funded IB Catalyst programme.
We
also coordinate the BBSRC-funded Anaerobic Digestion
Network - see
www.anaerobicdigestion.com.
And check out our Facebook page for what's new in
the Environmental laboratories
|
|
 |
|