Larry Stikeleather

The likelihood of the EPA regulating air pollutant emissions and local pressure to control odors necessitates the use of cost-effective methods to treat swine barn exhaust. Currently there are no cost-effective technologies for treating exhaust from livestock barns. We propose an engineered windbreak wall - vegetative strip system where the exhaust from the barn would be partially treated in a vegetative strip causing the free- and particle-bound gases to settle out, permitting the soil and plants to assimilate these pollutants. The windbreak wall would also facilitate dilution of the exhaust to reduce odors. The system would be designed using computational fluid dynamics software, then tested in the lab, and finally installed and monitored over 24 months at commercial swine and broiler farms in Lillington, NC. In addition to evaluation reduction in gas and particulate matter concentrations in the exhaust, changes in chemical concentrations will be monitored in the plants and soil will be compared with "control treatment" samples. The cost-effectiveness of this system, expressed in $/kg of pollutant reduced will be calculated.

Poultry brooding is expensive as it requires lots of propane. Further, many poultry producers reduce ventilation during brooding and winter to conserve propane. Reduced ventilation can degrade barn air quality which may adversely impact bird performance and worker health. Solar heating using transpired solar collector (TSC) can help reduce propane use by warming the incoming air temperature. However, conventional metal TSCs are very expensive. Our preliminary data show that a collector made of black plastic sheet can raise air temperature by up to 35 F and such a plastic TSC (pTSC) will cost only a fraction of the metal TSC. Hence, the overall objective of the proposed research is to evaluate the economic and technical feasibilities of using a pTSC in turkey brooding. A 4 ft by 8 ft pTSC module will be designed and fabricated for heating a room housing 250 turkey poults. The performance of this pTSC module will be evaluated based on temperature rise at different airflow rates as well as energy recovered (Btu/h and propane replaced). Energy use, environmental conditions, and air quality will be compared in the room heated with the pTSC with the adjacent control room, also with 250 poults; both rooms will also have conventional heating. Over two brooding flocks (total 10 weeks), bird performance (average daily weight gain, feed conversion, and mortalities) will be compared between the rooms with and without pTSC. Since the pTSC acts as a blackbody, it can provide supplemental cooling during nighttime. Hence, a bench-scale pTSC will be tested at different suction velocities to evaluate cooling effectiveness. Coconut coir as a desiccant to dehumidify the fresh air will also be examined.

The transpired solar collector (TSC) is very efficient at converting solar energy into useful heat. However, the economics of a TSC could be greatly improved if heat could be stored for use after sundown. Preliminary studies by the Shah’s mentorees have shown that coupling the TSC to a heat storage unit containing phase change materials (PCM) offers a potential heat storage solution. After selecting the most appropriate PCM, modeling will be used to optimize the design of a compact solar heat storage unit that maximizes heat storage and has simple payback comparable to direct heating. The system will be evaluated for its technical and economic performances during the heating season of 2014. This system offers considerable potential for additional research funding and commercialization.

Investigators will develop a method to produce near-ambient temperature CO2 gas from supply truck liquid CO2 using a vortex generator combined with geothermal ground tubes and cold-resistant polyethylene storage "bladders." Based on modeling, simulation and test evaluations, the equipment and procedures will be modified to meet the anticipated conditions representative of potential winter conditions in the upper Midwest climate. Once the system components and procedures have been modified and tested they will be transported to a cold climate site to be field evaluated under winter conditions. Based on the lessons learned from the field test, design specification and procedure documents will be developed.

Depopulation of commercial swine operations would likely take place on-site to reduce disease spread. One suggestion made by the swine industry for humanely killing large numbers of swine is to utilize enclosed dump-bed trucks or trailers as on-farm carbon dioxide (CO2) depopulation chambers. Potential advantages to this method over captive bolt, gunshot, or lethal injection of individual animals include the ability to rapidly move animals out of buildings using existing walkways and chutes, the ability to deposit the carcasses at the disposal site, and lower manpower requirements. Implementation of this method will require proactive establishment of protocols ensuring humane conditions while conserving resources and protecting personnel. Although we have demonstrated feasibility of CO2 for on-farm depopulation of adult pigs in a pilot study, the method needs standardization and refinement for all types of swine facilities prior to widespread adaptation in the event of a disease outbreak. The proposed project will result in a defined system for large-scale gas-based depopulation that can be applied to commercial farrowing, nursery, and finishing swine operations in the event of a foreign animal disease outbreak. The system will include loading methods, container identification and optimization, identification of gas delivery methods and performance targets, and time and motion performance specifications.

Sweet sorghum is an attractive bioenergy crop because it requires less crop inputs than corn or soybeans, and the juice provides a source of aqueous sugar that is easier to convert into ethanol than starch or cellulose. The development of a sweet sorghum conversion industry would allow marginal lands in North Carolina to be placed in agricultural production and create a bioenergy resource that is sustainable, does not compete with food or feed resources, and provides economic security for rural communities. The Biological and Agricultural Engineering Department (BAE) at North Carolina State University (NCSU) is leading the way in addressing the techno/economic concerns surrounding the production of sweet sorghum for ethanol. The BAE department cultivates sweet sorghum in Plymouth, Wallace, and Clayton, NC to assess the feasibility of using this crop to fuel the transportation systems of the state.

The overarching goal of the NC State University EFRI-HyBi program is to develop and demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of producing high quality transportation fuels from a non-food feedstock, namely microalgae (Dunaliella spp.).We will refine and optimize a multi-step, catalytic process to produce very high quality hydrocarbon biofuels from lipid biomass (microalgae) that are nearly identical to their petroleum-derived counterpart. Current (1st Gen) biofuels are chemically dissimilar from the fuels they replace, resulting in severe limitations including distribution of the fuel, lower energy density, oxidation/corrosion issues, and cold flow problems. Next generation biofuels, to be successful in the marketplace and accepted by the public, will necessarily mimic the chemical composition of the petroleum-derived fuels using non-food feedstocks. Key advantages of the proposed biofuels process are its feedstock flexibility (with algal oils as the focus), output flexibility/control and very limited hydrogen requirement (this is not a hydrogenation process). EFRI-HyBi seeks solutions to a number of difficult technical problems in converting algal oils into liquid transportation fuels. We will address the technical challenge of oil extraction by investigating two parallel paths using an easily-cultured algae, low energy separation processes to remove unwanted compounds from lipids/FFAs (e.g., phospholipids, etc), efficient hydrogenation into FFAs, optimization of the catalytic decarboxylation process, hydroisomerization and hydroaromitization as necessary, and quantification of the fuel properties. We will also address system architecture optimization and investigate multiple strategies to use byproducts efficiently.

Continuation of our biofuels efforts at converting triglyceride feed stocks into drop-in replacements for liquid transportation fuels.

The quest for liquid transportation fuels derived from bio-renewable resources (biofuels) has captured the attention of the nation and the world because of escalating petroleum costs and environmental concerns with the consumption of fossil fuels (e.g., global climate change). Currently, there is heavy emphasis on ethanol and biodiesel production in the U.S., with ethanol capacity approaching 6.2 billion gallons annually and biodiesel capacity approaching 300 million gallons annually. While these biofuels have enjoyed some commercial success, they do have a number of shortcomings. These ?first generation? biofuels are typically tied to a single feedstock, resulting in reliance on a single agricultural commodity. Another problem is that the chemical, physical, and combustion properties ethanol and biodiesel (Fatty Acid Methyl Esters, FAME) differ very significantly from their petroleum-derived counterparts, causing causes many operational difficulties. Ethanol, due to its hydroscopic nature, readily absorbs water and thus must be distributed throughout the US via truck or rail rather than through the existing pipeline infrastructure, significantly raising its cost and decreasing its ?greenness?. Ethanol also cannot be used in unmodified gasoline engines and has considerably lower energy density than gasoline, resulting in a reduction in fuel economy and vehicle range. Biodiesel has a lower energy density than petroleum diesel and has a cloud point around 0 ¢ªC, creating obvious cold-flow problems for winter operation. To mitigate these issues, we have invented a unique multi-step process (covered by three provisional patents) to convert virtually any triglyceride feedstock, from crop oils (both virgin and waste) to animal fats (from chickens to cattle) into a biofuel that has virtually identical chemical and physical properties to the petroleum fuel it is replacing. These ?second generation? biofuels do not have any of the drawbacks of the current first generation biofuels. In addition to true biogasoline and a second generation biodiesel, this process is capable of producing an aviation fuel that will be fully compliant with DoD and FAA fuel specs. The market for jet fuel is approximately 40 billion gallons annually (the US Air Force is currently spending $10M/day on JP-8!). The DoD is moving towards a single strategic fuel, replacing Diesel Fuel #2 with JP-8. Thus, it is expected that the demand for jet fuels will continually increase.

With some technical assistance, NC farmers have a great opportunity to benefit from the growing need for biofuels and other biobased products that can be generated through bioprocessing of farm-produced biomass. We propose to develop and promote a ?first phase? step toward on-farm bioethanol production by making use of a crop that 1) is well suited to NC soils and climate; 2) provides relatively high production of easy to process, directly fermentable aqueous sugar; 3) unlike corn, switchgrass and other cellulosic crops does not require complex conversions of starch, lignin, cellulose, and/or hemicellulose since the sugars are available directly from the crop; 4) has alternative uses to bioethanol production that can be explored in future development phases, including production of high priority building block chemicals from sugars and value added products and energy from residues/bagasse. The crop we propose to use is sweet sorghum. This grant will assist the development of an on-farm sorghum-to-ethanol production system for the purpose of evaluating the techno/economic potential and the level of grower interest in producing biofuels on farm. Pre-grant lab studies were conducted this fall using the sweet sorghum crop that Mr. Gerald Sykes (Nash County) had grown and offered for our use. Following these studies the grant will allow us to put in place an on-farm system for the demonstration of sweet sorghum-to-ethanol production. The whole stalks were pressed with fodder removed to improve juice quality and yield (Worley et al., 1992). The juice was filtered (for removal of bacterial contaminants) and stored at three conditions (fresh, frozen, concentrated syrup ~30o Brix). The completed fermentations indicated that Red Star® yeast can effectively convert non-sterile sweet sorghum juice (~15o Brix, pH 5.2) to ethanol within five days at ambient temperature (13 ? 24o C). Extension meetings to show and promote the concept will be organized during next summer/fall in the Nash County area with the help of our extension cooperators listed in the proposal. While the location for the on-farm activity is eastern NC, an extension publication based on this work will allow the dissemination of the project results statewide and regionally.