The Cornell Pyrolysis Facility was recently awarded a NYS Centers for Advanced Technology (CAT) grant. This award will focus on conversion of hog slurry to biochar/bioenergy. The collaboration includes Dr. Marco Castaldi , director of the Earth Engineering Center (City College of NY); Dr. Jeff Tester (Professor, Cornell School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering) and Sustainable Waste Power Systems, Inc. (SWPS). Using the SWPS prototype unit located at CCNY, hog manure slurry will be processed with the overall process energy efficiency being assessed. Biochar created from the SWPS unit will be sent to the Lehmann Lab for characterization. Simultaneously, hog manure feedstock will be pyrolyzed at the Cornell facility and the resultant biochar products will be compared through characterization analyses. These analyses will provide information on the biochars for compliance with NY DEC Beneficial Use Determination. They will also allow for inferences on agronomic use as well as persistence and therefore soil carbon sequestration.
With the captured data from the Lehmann and Castaldi Groups, Dr. Tester’s group will further the effort by developing a coupled life cycle analysis and TEA model that will incorporate analysis of uncertainty to measure tradeoffs among the following environmental and economic indicators: overall process energy efficiency, energy return on energy invested, climate change impacts and other environmental emission impacts, ecosystem quality, human health, water footprint, invested capital and operating costs, product revenues, and net present value.