14 DAY TRIAL // You probably know that there are some alternative fuel power plants or engines that use ethanol, a gas produced during the decomposition of organic materials, as fuel, like from corn, or manure from farm animals.
Did you also know that diesel engines can very well run on used cooking oil?
These new alternative fuel sources started being taken into account almost recently, and only on a small scale, but it looks like they'll stay on a small scale for some time.
When the US Army starts using them, you know that (most likely) they'll rapidly grow, since the military only uses "the best of the best".
The tactical biorefinery is a portable machine that can convert food waste and inorganic trash into electricity.
Purdue University researchers created a unique hybrid design for the U.S. Army. It uses three distinct technologies to perform its magic: a bioreactor that uses enzymes and micro-organisms to turn food waste into ethanol, a gasification unit that turns plastics, paper, and other residual waste into methane and low-grade propane and a modified diesel engine that can burn gas, ethanol, and diesel fuel in variable proportions.
It gets a kickstart from a small amount of diesel, then the army chef comes and pours the mess tent garbage in. The resulting ethanol displaces the diesel fuel, which only continues in a very low quantity "drip".
This project initially studied the typical waste streams that soldiers produce in the field to select the best energy-conversion technologies. A biocatalytic process was chosen to deal with the food portion of the waste. The trick was to get the pH balance and temperature right for the mixture of enzymes and microorganisms that the researchers selected. For plastics, wood, and other nonfood waste that can't be broken down in a bioreactor, a gasifier was developed that exposes the material to extreme heat in a low-oxygen environment.
Now, thanks to this tactical biorefinery that uses garbage from the mess tent to create electricity, an army not only "marches on its stomach," it also runs its camp on it.
Further applications are expected to be shrunk down to the size of a Humvee, and it would be an ideal system for use in the field by the military, finally putting to good use the tons and tons of potatoes.