BACKGROUND
5+ Billion Gallons of Beer Produced
Yearly in the U.S.
=
15+ Billion Gallons of Wastewater Produced
+
3 Million Tons of Solid Waste Produced
Brewing Process
Malting
Mashing
Fermentation
Prepare barley grain to germinate leaves
Grains are boiled with other ingredients in a large tub of boiling water to create a sweet liquid
Wort is then filtered and combined with yeast to create beer
Spent Grains
Spent grains are made up of milled grain husks and various layers of grain coating. They are filtered from the malting and mashing process to be later dried.
Wastewater
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Wastewater is made up of organic matter (yeast, hops, fruits, and grains), so it requires more energy and resources to purify in local water treatment facilities.
After the waste is filtered out...
Spent Grains
The spent grains would commonly be dried and shipped to farms and businesses to be respectively used as animal feed or repurposed to food products. They may also be repurposed as a fuel source.
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If not properly recycled or disposed, they can damage the atmosphere.
Wastewater
​The wastewater would be shipped to local water treatment facilities to be cleaned at expensive costs. This is due to its organic contents, which requires more oxygen for these facilities' microbes to properly purify the waste. This makes it taxing to properly treat.
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After treatment, the wastewater is then dumped into streams, lakes, and oceans. If not properly treated beforehand, it can drastically acidify bodies of water, encourage deadly algal blooms, and kill aquatic life.​​
Our Project
Here is where our project steps in.
We propose that the waste is treated on-site and repurposed into renewable resources. The wastewater would be cleaned and recycled into electricity using microbial fuel cells. This energy could power a portion of the brewery facility, such as lighting. Spent grains could be repurposed into biodegradable bioplastics, which could be molded into packaging or sold as a product.
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Since brewery waste is produced in various regions of the country, this project is intended to provide a more accessible way of reducing and recycling waste, while maintaining profits.
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This project is also intended to test the efficiency and effectiveness of these technologies in repurposing brewery waste products. Although it is done at home, the results can be scaled up for large-scale breweries.
Summary
Problem
1. Substantial amounts of waste annually produced have major environmental impacts (algal blooms, pH spikes, and methane gas emissions).
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2. Difficult to remove brewery waste because of the high costs and feasibility based on particular locations
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3. Brewery wastewater and spent grains are difficult to repurpose because there are only a few methods available
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Proposed Solution
1. Using microbial fuel cells, breweries can treat their wastewater on-site to produce electricity which can power a portion of the brewery facility, such as lighting.
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2. Using spent grains, breweries can create bioplastics, which can be molded into packaging or other purposes.
Challenges
1. Limited Budget: $650
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2. Tight Time Frame: 3 months to test prototypes and complete the project.
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3. COVID pandemic prevents our group from physically reaching out to breweries to ask for their waste
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4. COVID pandemic forces us to coordinate using online means
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5. Working on the project at-home from a small-scale instead of a larger-scale
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6. No lab access or lab equipment to properly separate or distinguish the waste composition
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Goals
1. Prove the effectiveness and efficiency of MFCs and Bioplastics in repurposing brewery waste
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2. Encourage breweries to be partially self-sustainable while remaining environmentally conscious of their waste.
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3. Increase brewery profit by lowering energy and waste transportation costs.
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4. Developing and implementing a process where this waste can be reused in an environmentally friendly way.