Author: grahambj

Key FESC Research

Enhancing Energy Efficiency and Conservation
Zero Energy Homes
Developing Florida's Biomass Resources
Liquid Fuels from Biomass
Harnessing Florida's Solar Resources
Solar Thermal Power
Rectifying Antenna Solar Power
Clean Water using Advanced Solar Energy Detoxification
Ensuring Nuclear Energy and Carbon Constrained Technologies for Electric Power in Florida
Exploiting Florida’s Ocean and Wind Energy Resources
Securing our Energy Storage and Delivery Infrastructure
Power Generation Expansion
Establishing PV Industry in Florida

Inside this issue:

...from waste	2
Activities	3
Decathalon	3
Expertise	3
FAQs	3
Passes	4

Visitors	4

Competes	4

Energy Currents

University of South Florida

Number 5

winter 2011

By Vickie Chachere,
USF News, Nov. 7, 2011
There are some unvarnished facts about life on our planet that need addressing for USF Assoc. Prof. and FESC Co-PI, Daniel Yeh. First, there are 7 billion people who live on the Earth, all needing clean water to grow food and energy to power their communities, and all of them produce bio-waste. So what if you could take some of the things humans really need (like clean water and energy) and harvest those necessities from the one thing everybody has to do? Even better, what if you could get Bill and Melinda Gates to agree this is a really intriguing idea?
Yeh is one of this year’s winners of a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges Explorations grant to support his innovative anaerobic membrane bioreactor, a device trademarked as the “NEWgenerator.” It recovers nutrients, energy and water from human wastes, leaving very little to be disposed of and producing new products which are in short supply.
“How are we going to make enough food? Where’s the energy going to come from? We have to stop having everything being a one-way street. We need to close the loop,” said Yeh.
The project is one of 110 in six categories selected for support from the Gates Challenges fund, which is designed specifically for researchers to explore unconventional ideas that could solve persistent global health and development challenges.
Yeh will use the $100K grant to develop a prototype device that, once linked into a septic system, will convert human waste into water that has been thoroughly cleaned of pathogens and is suitable for crop irrigation or household uses such as in cooling systems or flushing. The process, which uses microbes to break down the waste, also produces methane gas which can be captured and used for heating and as a clean energy source.
Yeh is not the first to look at waste as a renewable energy source. Cruise ships and “green” buildings are already filtering wastewater to near drinking-water quality and recycling it for cooling systems and to flush toilets.
Yeh has developed a contained refinery system that is r e l a t i v e l y inexpensive, doesn’t consume much energy itself and doesn’t leave much byproduct from the waste processing. The Gates grant will help fund the construction of a larger prototype that will be put into use at the Learning Gate Community School, a Hillsborough County charter school that has built its curriculum around sustainability.
The methane gas can be captured by Yeh’s machine

Useable By-Products from Bio-Waste

FESC co-PI Daniel Yeh harvests clean water, methane and nutrients from sewage.

See “… human bio-waste to power” pg. 2

Page #

FESC Universities

Biowaste . . .
Exploring
the
conversion
of biowaste
to energy.
This is
a process
that is
renewable
and environmentally
attractive.

The Florida State University System provides the backbone of renewable energy expertise for the Florida Energy Systems Consortium. Member universities include:
University of Florida
Florida State University
Florida Atlantic University
University of Central Florida
University of South Florida
University of West Florida
University of North Florida
New College of Florida
Florida International University
Florida Gulf Coast University

… human bio-waste to power (from pg. 1)

and piped out of NEWgenerator while the water is processed through a specialized membrane that removes other elements, along with bacteria and other pathogens that would make using the reclaimed water problematic.
What’s left behind is water containing two nutrients: ammonia and phosphate. Those are exactly the two nutrients plants need to grow, making the water especially useful for crop irrigation, he noted. Over four years, Yeh has built and perfected a small version of the NEWgenerator.

The test “waste” matter isn’t what you might think; Yeh uses dry cat food soaked in water which mimics the properties of human waste. “The more polluted it is, the more methane we can recover,” Yeh explained.
The system differs from current wastewater treatment plants which use aerobic microbes to breakdown wastes. Those systems require more energy to run and leave considerable sludge byproduct that must be disposed. Yeh’s project also is intended for a much smaller scale than large centralized systems which are expensive for communities to construct.
The demonstration project at Learning Gate will be constructed in an area of the large school grounds where access is controlled, although the school will incorporate its design and planned functionality into its lessons on sustainability. The challenges in building a larger-scale device is keeping the cylinder where the anaerobic microbes do their work airtight and continually refining the design to make it rugged and affordable to operate as it would need to be in a developing nation.

Recently graduated Ph.D. student Ana Prieto, fine-tunes the NEWgenerator.

Energy Currents

Number 5

Page #

Faculty and Student Activities

FESC co-PI Maya Trotz of Civil and Environmental Engineering organized the 2011 Assoc. of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors conference, held at USF-Tampa Bay. Conference themes included water depletion & degradation; assessing & improving air quality & waste management; infrastructure for an expanding & urbanizing population, vulnerability & adaptation to climate change.
A research consortium led by the USF-St. Petersburg College of Marine Science was awarded more than $11M through BP Oil’s “Gulf of Mexico

Research Initiative” to continue as- sessing the impacts of the 2010 Deep water Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico’s ocean and coastal ecosys tems and to build better ways for pre dicting damage from future spills. FESC Co-PI Robert Weisberg and his colleagues will carry out substantive research in this project.
FESC co-PI Chris Ferekides’ research team netted $987K from the US DOE’s Sunshot Initiative for their project researching the doping of thin-film, cadmium-telluride PV cells to increase cell open-circuit voltage, leading to higher cell efficiencies.

Graduate student Innocent Udom received the NASA-Harriett G. Jenkins Pre-doctoral Fellowship Project (JPFP) award based on a proposal submitted using data from Prof. Sarina Ergas’ FESC funded project “Green Aviation Fuels from Microalgae.” Udom received $121,500 from NASA Glenn Research Center.
Graduate student Syed Ali Gardezi won first place in the poster competition at the 2011 Florida Energy Systems Consortium Annual Summit, held at the University of Florida, in Gainesville in September. Gardezi’s poster was entitled “Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis via Biomass Derived Synthesis Gas” (S.A. Gardezi, B. joseph, the late J.T. Wolan, and Y. Goswami)

Solar Decathalon

USFarchitecture students led Team Florida in the 2011 international Solar Decathlon competition. A two-year project, Team Florida designed and built “FleX House,” a net-zero solar energy home. Team Florida’s USF faculty advisor Dr. Stan Russell is a co-PI within CERC’s FESC.
The U.S. DOE’s Solar Decathlon challenges collegiate teams to design, build, and operate solar-powered houses that are cost-effective, energy-efficient, and attractive. The winner of

the competition was the team that best blends affordability, consumer appeal, and design excellence with optimal energy production and maximum efficiency. The houses were intended for different housing markets, including lower-income, disaster relief, retirement and single families. This year’s 20 collegiate teams spent almost two years creating houses to compete in the 10 contests of the Solar Decathlon. To win, a team had to produce a house that:
Is affordable, attractive, and easy to live in;
Maintains comfortable and healthy indoor environmental conditions;

Supplies energy to household appliances for cooking, cleaning, and entertainment;
Provides adequate hot water;
Produces as much or more energy than it consumes.
The University of Maryland took the overall trophy this year.

USF’s FleX House during construction.

FESC Expertise

FAQs and Links

FESC was charged to perform R+D on innovative energy systems that lead to alternative energy strategies, improve energy efficiencies, and expand economic development for FL. The consortium has considerable energy-related expertise and competitively funded research. FESC’s research focuses on those energy areas most relevant to Florida. Specifically, the FESC research agenda addresses energy generation from our two most abundant renewable resources (biomass and solar), carbon-free electric power generation (nuclear power, carbon sequestration), tapping the energy available from the ocean along our long and populated coastline, reducing consumption through energy conservation, and defining more efficient load management and energy storage systems.

FESC’s outreach effort focuses on increasing Florida’s energy use efficiency and to measurably reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases. Educational materials and programs developed by FESC are based on energy and climate research findings and analysis conducted at Florida’s state universities as well as national sources.
Outreach programs are designed to deliver practical, applicable information and knowledge to targeted groups including: the general public, professionals, local officials and state policymakers.
A website full of handy FAQs makes energy awareness easy to acquire. http://www.floridaenergy.ufl.edu/?page_id=13
Another site houses an extensive library of links to many RE related sites: http://www.floridaenergy.ufl.edu/?page_id=11

FESC Researcher Passes

http://www.floridaenergy.ufl.edu/

At the

Published by the
Clean Energy Research Center

College of Engineering
University of South Florida
4202 E. Fowler Avenue, Mail Stop ENB 118
Tampa, FL 33620
Phone: 813-974-7322 Fax: 813-974-2050
E-mail: solar@usf.edu
Web: http://cerc.usf.edu

The USF FESC management team is led by CERC’s Prof. Yogi Goswami as Director. Ms. Barbara Graham coordinates communications and publications. For more information: http://cerc.eng.usf.edu
Yogi Goswami goswami@usf.edu
Barbara Graham grahambj@usf.edu

CERC / FESC Competes
Research One

During November the CoE held the 4th Annual Research Day as part of the wider “USF Research One” celebration of activities and events showcasing the work of researchers throughout the USF System. CoE’s Research Day features cutting edge research presentations by engineering students and faculty and provides an opportunity for networking with local industry. This year the event was held in the newly renovated multipurpose classroom in the Engineering II Building. CERC and FESC-supported graduate students presented poster papers at the event.
“Metal Thin-film Roughness Mitigation through Thermal annealing for Self-Assembled Monolayer Growth” (M. Celestin, S. Koiry, S. Krishnan, and Y. Goswami)
“Analysis of Supercritical Fluids for Geothermal Power Conversion” (R. Vidhi, S. Kuravi, Y. Goswami, and L. Stefanakos)
“DFT Studies on the Influence of Platinum Promoter on CO Activation Pathways of Cobalt Catalyst in Fischer Tropsch Synthesis” (N. Balakrishan, V. Bhethanabotla, and B. Joseph)
“Fischer Tropsch Synthesis via Biomass Derived Syngas (S.A. Gardezi, B. Joseph, and J.T. Wolan)
“Towards Efficient Synthetic Hydrocarbon Fuel Production: Role of Cobalt Nanoparticle Size” (B. Mankidy, B. Joseph, J.T. Wolan, Y. Goswami, and V. Gupta)

Dr. John T. Wolan, Jr., 53, of Tampa, passed away August 17, 2011. Born in 1957 in Abington, Pennsylvania, he received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Central Florida and master’s and doctorate degrees from the University of Florida. Dr. Wolan was an associate professor of USF’s Chemical and Biomedical Engineering since 2001. Dr. Wolan was also a FESC co-PI, actively investigating the production of liquid fuels to biomass via thermo-chemical conversion processes, which earned an honorable mention at the DOE’s sponsored Global Venture challenge in 2010. Dr. Wolan is survived by his daughter, siblings and parents. A celebration of John’s life was held August 27 at Tims Memorial Presbyterian Church in Lutz.

Visitors

Michele Bustamante preparing
samples in laboratory glove box.

CERC hosted Michele Bustamante from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in NY state, for 2011 NSF Summer Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program. Michele’s work involved preparing carbonate eutectic salts for use as thermal storage in concentrated solar power applications.
The US Dept. of State sponsored Internat’l Visitor Leadership Program brought visitors from India as part of the “Climate Change and Clean Energy: A Project for India” program to learn about clean energy research from CERC directors Lee Stefanakos and Yogi Goswami, in April. The program explored technological and regulatory issues involved with promoting clean energy technology in the US. The group was locally sponsored by the Internat’l Council of the Tampa Bay Region.
The US Energy Assoc. (a member committee of the World Energy Council) hosted a group of So. Asian energy executives to visit the USF and tour the CERC laboratories, in March. The USEA program, “So. Asia Regional Initiative for Energies” aims at building global networking contacts for energy professionals in both the public and private sectors. Group members working in the public energy utilities, wind power and micro-solar sphere hailed from Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bangladesh.
In June, Tampa City Councilwoman Lisa Montelione, Raymond Herbert (Tampa Facilities Manager) and Randy Klindworth (Hillsborough County Energy Manager) toured the CERC laboratories and spoke with co-director Yogi Goswami and CoE Associate Dean Tom Weller, in a fact-finding mission to better position Tampa in the rapidly evolving sustainable energy field.

(L-R) Raymond Herbert, Dr. Yogi Goswami, Dr. Tom Weller, Lisa Monetlione, and Randy Klindworth.

At the

Example of heliostats arrayed around a concentrating tower.

Clean Energy is Green Energy

Key lllxxx

In most developed countries the magic of indoor plumbing, urban sewer systems and wastewater treatment plants quite literally make human waste an “out of sight, out of mind” issue. But developing nations struggle with sanitation issues at the same time they are managing growing needs for water for crops and industry.
With the world’s clean water supply reaching a crisis-level in depletion, many experts acknowledge that using potable water for uses other than drinking is simply a waste of a dwindling resource and new solutions are needed.

Expansion	4

Sustainabe	4

Water	5

Thermal	5

Who	6

Biofuels	6

Round Table Discussions

It is not clear yet if the U.S. will finally put a price on carbon. Currently, things do not look very good. However, maybe in a few months, the environment (in Congress) will change and the chances of passing climate change legislation will increase.
My research team is wrestling with one of the most salient questions related to the emission control programs: what is the optimal redistribution strategy for the revenue raised from either a carbon tax or the auction of allowances in a cap-and trade program?
Economists have long advocated for redistributing the carbon revenue among i) households, in order to compensate for the likely increase of electricity prices due to the price on emissions, and ii) renewable-based generators, so that they can improve their competitiveness against fossil-fuel generators and increase their market share. However, there is no agreement as to how the revenue should be split among these market participants and the timing of the redistribution.
My research team is developing a social-welfare maximization-focused mathematical model to obtain revenue redistribution strategies for a planning horizon among households and renewable generators. Their optimization model is founded on an Optimal Power Flow (OPF) problem and incorporates multi-period horizon, subsidies for households and renewable-based generators, and a set of constraints for the amount of revenue available for redistribution during each period.
The model will aid policymakers in proposing/evaluating revenue redistribution strategies that accompany emissions control programs. Currently, my team is testing the model with several sample problems and performing sensitivity analysis of the model parameters.

“To catch the reader's attention, place an interesting sentence or quote from the story here.”

The US DOE awarded a multiyear initiative to Goswami and his team for “Base-load Concentrating Solar Power Generation.” Combined with the DOE award, the State of Florida through the Florida Energy Systems Consortium, and SunBorne Energy Technologies, India, awards for “Development of a Modular Central Receiver Concentrated Solar Power Plant for Decentralized Power Generation” now provide a solid platform for continued ground-breaking research.

This 1,000 sq. ft. house prototype will function as a learning center for students, faculty and the general public on the USF-Tampa campus.

Example of a solar trough array.

Courtesy of Sopogy.

Ocean Expert Weisberg Testifies on Gulf Oil Spill Science Shortcomings

The competition is sponsored by the U.S. Dept. of Energy and leading technology and venture capital organizations.

Continued page 2 “Spill”

Back Page Story Headline

Before and after examples of photocatalytic technology killing Serratia marcescens bacterium.

Subramanian Krishnan, PhD