In September 2021, the US Department of Energy (DOE) awarded the Lehigh University Energy Research Center (ERC) a new $ 3.5 million project to develop advanced technologies for the rapid detection and analysis of municipal waste (MSW).
The technology will be a mix of laser-induced breakthrough spectroscopy (LIBS) and Raman spectroscopy, providing real-time in-situ spectra for further analysis by AI algorithms. The project will develop and build both the hardware and the software for the on-site demonstration in the TRI pilot plant for MSW biofuels. Through the real-time characterization of municipal waste raw materials for the feed-forward process control of downstream biofuel production processes, this supports the innovation goal of the bioenergy technology office, which accelerates raw material technologies that would advance a bioeconomy.
In total, there are 11 university and industry-led projects developing biomass resources that can be converted into low-carbon fuel for aircraft and ships. Regarding the larger DOE project, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said:
“From food waste to garden waste, biomass technology converts our everyday trash into low-carbon fuel for planes and ships, while reducing costs and supporting our critical transportation sector.
“The companies and universities leading these projects will ensure that our state-of-the-art biofuel technologies reduce carbon emissions, create new jobs along the supply chain and are made in America by American workers.”
This is part of a much larger project, a $ 34 million project from the Bioenergy Technology Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy. The purpose is to support research and development that have a big impact and improve as well as produce biofuels, biofuels and bioproducts.
The team led by the ERC will include the Energy Research Company (ERCo), the DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory, ThermoChem Recovery International, Covanta Energy, the University of Toledo and SpG Consulting.
From Lehigh University, Dr. Carlos Romero, Principal Research Scientist and Director of the ERC Zheng Yao, a researcher at the ERC, and Professor Farrah Moazeni from the Department of Civil & Engineering. One notable finding is that AI is being used to lead the way to increased waste-to-energy production.
Lehigh University published an article with some more details of their contribution to this project. In this article, Dr. Carolos Romero:
“There are different ways to process rubbish.
“One is to landfill it, another will burn it to generate electricity, and another will use it as raw material to make biofuels and organic products. However, the nature of municipal waste, a very heterogeneous material with great variability in its physical, chemical and biological properties, poses considerable challenges when it comes to optimizing the conversion processes of municipal waste. “
Yao spoke about how both the ERC and ERCo have worked on a method that uses both LIBS and AI to better analyze coal for power generation.
“With LIBS alone, we were only able to measure the elementary composition of the fuel. But through the use of neural AI networks, we were able to improve the measurement accuracy and correlate the elemental composition with other higher-order parameters such as the calorific value and the ash melting temperature. “
Dr. Romero pointed out that generating energy from waste requires an accurate analysis of the waste materials in a given lot.
“There are standardized procedures for obtaining and analyzing a representative sample.
“The team’s innovative LIBS Raman spectroscopy in combination with AI has the potential to significantly improve the accuracy of the analysis and its speed, while at the same time making it easier to integrate this information into the process control of the bioenergy reactor.”
I had a quick email chat with Yao who told me that the ERC’s multidisciplinary research arena includes traditional and renewable energy generation. The aim of the ERC is to solve national and global energy and energy problems. The team does this by working with all levels of government agencies, energy companies, technology developers and suppliers, as well as the research community and academic institutions.
He also shared some more details about what exactly the project will develop. This project will develop a new optical technique that enables rapid detection and analysis of MSW currents and the research team is focused on the following five main goals:
- Explore optical techniques for online detection and quantification of municipal waste.
- Develop artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms for system computing.
- Design an integrated prototype and associated AI software.
- Install and demonstrate the prototype in a household waste plant with an industrial environment typical of household waste processing plants.
- Evaluate the prototype’s performance against the Department of Energy (DOE) project metrics.
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