Scientists at the OB体育官网 are taking the lab to the landfill, refining a groundbreaking process that uses trash to make liquid fuel.
Across the United States, more than 3,000 active landfills are currently producing a potentially valuable, but often unutilized resource 鈥� biogas. A byproduct of the decomposition of biomass (e.g. food waste, lawn clippings, agricultural waste), biogas is generally made up of methane and carbon dioxide. Once collected, researchers are able to chemically convert the gas into a sustainable form of diesel fuel, which can then be used anywhere traditional fossil fuels are used.
While the idea of utilizing garbage as a power source is nothing new 鈥� think Doc Brown鈥檚 DeLorean in "Back to the Future" 鈥� efficiently creating liquid fuel from common wastes would represent a big step forward.
鈥淭here are many ways to take biomass and convert that to energy forms,鈥� said , in the Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering. 鈥淭he most popular form right now is to burn the waste and produce heat. The