Sep 30 2009

A Fine Vintage of Hydrogen

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

While you're relaxing with a fine bottle of wine from Napa Valley, some microbes may be hard at work turning the winery's wastewater into hydrogen that can run vehicles and power supplies.

Bruce Logan, a professor of environmental engineering at Penn State, has enlisted Napa Wine Company in Oakville to test his refrigerator-sized hydrogen generator. Tiny bacteria break down the organic waste from the winemaking process--pulp, seeds, stems and cleaning water--in an electrolysis plant to create hydrogen gas. The process is called electrohydrogenesis. 

His demonstration system processes about 1,000 liters of wastewater each day. "There is almost 10 times more energy in the wastewater than we use to currently treat it," Logan said.

Napa Wine Company, which offered its facilities for the test, grows grapes on more than 635 acres. It has produced more than 100 consecutive harvests and is now 100 percent organically certified.

In 2005, Popular Mechanics magazine gave Logan and two colleagues a Breakthrough Award for his early work using microbial electric generators to produce hydrogen. The National Science Foundation heralded their early device as being up to twice as efficient as other biological systems for creating hydrogen, and flexible enough to digest human or animal waste as well as plant material.

"Bruce Logan is a clear leader in this area of research on sustainable energy," said Bruce Hamilton, director of the environmental sustainability program at NSF, which funds his work.

To learn more--or build a microbial fuel cell yourself--check out Logan's helpful web site.

 

 

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