Back in September, a company called NanoLogix announced it had been able to make hydrogen from the waste stream at a Welch Foods juice plant in Pennsylvania. Now, the radio show "The Allegheny Front," an environmental radio program, has taken a closer look at this technology and aired a report last week. You can hear it here (look for "Microbes Turn Waste to Power" and "Welch's Grape Juice Converted into Electricity") or read the transcript of the report here.

The process works like this: during the cleaning process at the plant, a lot of waste water is generated that has a bit of sugar in it. This easy-to-digest liquid is then fed to millions of microorganisms that produce hydrogen. Currently, the NanoLogix tests can get a liter of hydrogen from one gallon of wastewater that contains .3 percent sugar. The goal, though, is to use 16 percent sugar wastewater and get 55 liters of hydrogen from each gallon. Once perfected, the NanoLogix logic goes, this system could be installed at bottlers and beverage makers across the country, and we'll be one step closer to the hydrogen economy.

Related:

• Grape-flavored energy? Welch's, NanoLogix have generated hydrogen from bioreactor

[Source: NanoLogix, Inc.]

NanoLogix has announced the successful creation of hydrogen gas from a prototype bioreactor at a facility run by Welch Foods in Pennsylvania (the best belches come from Welches grape juice, we used to say). NanoLogix used the hydrogen to power an electricity generator, but EV and hydrogen car enthusiasts can get behind a system that uses waste-digesting bacteria to make hydrogen, right? Harry Diz, department chair and professor of environmental engineering at nearby Gannon University and the bioreactor development chief at NanoLogix, said the test was the "first time in history that electricity has been generated anywhere onsite using hydrogen produced through the use of bacteria to digest waste."

Bret Barnhizer, chairman and CEO of NanoLogix, said that the company wants to enhance Welch's facilty to commercial bioreactor status in the future and then use sugar from their wastewater stream to produce hydrogen. The partnership also hopes to tap hydrogen from a decidedly less tasty biomass source in 2008: the Erie Wastewater Treatment Plant's activated sludge waste stream.

[Source: NanoLogix Inc.]