Biomass Controls, LLC — Department of Agriculture SBIR Phase I: 8.6

Description

U.S. hog farming is a $35 billion industry facing a pressing issue in the amount of manure theyproduce. A hog farm with 800000 hogs produces 1.6 million tons of waste per year more than thewaste produced by the city of Philadelphia. One popular manure management system is anaerobicmanure lagoons outdoor earthen basins filled with animal waste. However these lagoons areparticularly vulnerable to natural disaster. Most recently in 2018's Hurricane Florence 96hog-manure lagoons in North Carolina were critically flooded with 33 discharging their waste. Theresult was damage to downstream communities' water supply and a massive crop loss.Biomass Controls LLC is proposing to develop and validate the use of their farm-scale biogenicrefinery pyrolysis-combustion process to convert lagooned hog manure to value added biochar. Thebiogenic refinery can improve disaster vulnerability in farm operations by providing an alternativemanure disposal route and a way to safely empty and convert existing hog manure lagoons to disasterimpervious biochar. Biomass Controls proposes to extend and develop a commercial application oftheir existing biogenic refinery suiting hog farm needs by: characterizing hog lagoon feedstock todetermine any treatment necessary prior input to the biogenic refinery; optimizing the existingbiogenic refinery processing to produce biochar from hog sludge; and characterizing the biochar. Theproposed research would provide technical and economic results in applying the biogenic refinery tomeeting the treatment needs of lagooned hog manure thereby reducing the vulnerabilities of ruralcommunities to hazards.