Hello YODL'ers - Happy Friday. I have been asked to share the below research opportunity for AAFC:
A food waste management project, "AI-Based Tools to Transform Food Waste into Biogas and Biofertilizers" led by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) and the Canadian Institute of Food Science and Technology (CIFST), is seeking industrial sponsorship for further collaboration. For enterprises interested, any questions regarding sponsorship benefits (IP licensing and more) or project details can be directed to the cluster director, project leader, or project coordinator:
- Dr. Phillip Lee Wing (Food Science Cluster Director, Canadian Institute of Food Science and Technology CIFST): phillip@cifst.ca
- Dr. Bao-Luo Ma (Project Leader, Senior Research Scientist, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada AAFC): baoluo.ma@agr.gc.ca
- Dr. Guoqi Wen (Project Coordinator, Biologist at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada): Guoqi.Wen@agr.gc.ca
* This project, running from 2023 to 2028, has been approved by AAFC and CIFST under the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership (SCAP) – AgriScience Program, with $1.1M in government funding.
Project Overview:
Title: AI-Based Tools to Transform Food Waste into Biogas and Biofertilizers
Food waste is evolving into a serious global problem due to the continued growth of the global population and the resulting increase in food demand. Traditional methods of handling food waste, such as landfilling and incineration, often lead to many health and environmental problems as well as loss of valuable resources. On the other hand, gas shortages and ongoing wars during the Covid-19 pandemic have heightened the need to find alternative sustainable energy sources. Food waste has a high methane-producing potential, especially proteins and carbohydrates in meat, oils, and vegetables. This provides the opportunity to extract energy from food waste using cost-effective approaches, such as anaerobic fermentation. Furthermore, due to the abundance of plant nutrients in food waste, such as N, P, K, Zn, Fe, and Ca, converting the leftovers into agricultural fertilizers is a promising strategy. However, the presence of contaminants such as plastics, glass, and metals in food waste significantly hinders its reuse. Therefore, developing a high-tech waste sorting system integrated with a food waste recycling platform is crucial. The main goal of this research is to create a fully automatic sorting and processing machinery that can efficiently convert food waste into high quality biogas and fertilizers, with three specific objectives and four major deliverables:
Objectives:
(1) Developing a sensor and deep learning algorithm-based platform for sorting food waste and creating a fully automatic food waste digestion system.
(2) Optimizing the parameters to make anaerobic fermentation and aerobic processing functions as efficient as possible to recover nutrients and energy from food waste.
(3) Assessing the commercial potential of biogas and the viability of biofertilizers as alternatives to conventional fertilizers.
Deliverables:
(1) Develop IP for an AI-driven smart platform for food waste sorting.
(2) Develop IP for an automatic food waste digestion system.
(3) Produce biofertilizers and biogas from food waste and assess their quality through laboratory and field trials.
(4) Quantify the benefits and potential drawbacks, such as effects on greenhouse gas emissions, a key indicator of climate change.
This study will greatly reduce food waste and alleviate the workload of wastewater treatment plants. Food waste recycling could assist communities and the food industry by producing energy gases and reducing trash-related health and environmental problems. The potential to reduce commercial fertilizer use could increase economic returns to agricultural systems and save fossil consumption in pursuit of sustainable crop-natural resource coordination systems.
Please reach out to the project team if you are interested or have questions!