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.]

Nano-bio-technology company Nanologix has apparently come up with a new process for producing hydrogen gas for use as a fuel. Microbiologists Dr. Sergey Gazenko and Ben Feldmann have developed a proprietary bacteria that can convert various nutrients into hydrogen. The idea of a proprietary life form is rather disturbing, but this is nonetheless probably the best path toward efficient production of hydrogen.

The bacteria is grown in anaerobic conditions and then used to metabolize sugars that are converted to hydrogen and carbon dioxide. They pass the gas that's produced through a sodium hydroxide solution that absorbs the carbon dioxide, leaving just the hydrogen. The researchers used switchgrass combined with a solution of grape juice waste as the feedstock. They found that the combination produced three times as much hydrogen as the switchgrass or grape juice alone. Nanologix believes that this is a major advance in making mass hydrogen production more viable.

The process is flexible and adapts to other biomass feed stocks and the bacteria are easily cultured. Biological processes like this should require much less energy input then any traditional production methods. These kinds of processes can also use biomass that can be grown in a wide variety of environments without detracting from food production as well as using organic waste materials. Click read to see the Nanologix press release.

[Source: PRNewsWire]