Duckweed may help clean up the planet!
Wouldn’t it be great to get rid of animal (and maybe even human) waste in an eco-friendly way while also producing energy to run our cars? This scenario may be closer than we think. Researchers at North Carolina State University presented data at the annual conference of the Institute of Biological Engineering in Santa Carla, Calif last month that may bring us closer to this goal.
A tiny aquatic plant, called duckweed, was used to clean up animal waste stored in “lagoons” on hog farms. Growing this plant on wastewater produces five to six times more starch per acre than corn and captures nutrients that would otherwise pollute the environment. The fast-growing, high-starch duckweed can then be converted into ethanol, just as is currently being done with corn.
This is good news for those who have been arguing against the environmental friendliness of using corn as a bio-fuel. Concerns with using corn in this capacity include land competition for food crops, groundwater depletion, soil erosion, algae blooms, and the formation of “dead zones” in waterways inundated with pesticide and fertilizer runoff. The use of duckweed may convent some, if not all, of these problems. Indeed, duckweed may even reduce the nutrient (fertilizer) load on farms.
Dr. Jay Cheng, a professor of biological and agricultural engineering at North Carolina State University, and Dr. Anne-Marie Stomp, associate professor of forestry at North Carolina State University, are planning on continuing their research by establishing a pilot-scale project to help establish a large-scale system for growing duckweed on animal wastewater, and then harvesting and drying the duckweed for ethanol production. Let’s just hope they can keep the duckweed from contaminating natural bodies of water!
adapted from a news release by North Carolina State University on EurekAlert!
April 8, 2009 at 8:54 pm
This sounds very promising. Ideally we wouldn’t waste energy growing fuel but grow food and use the waste products a source of fuel. I hope it works out!
April 9, 2009 at 4:33 pm
From what I understand, neither process is very efficient in extracting ethanol out of corn (either using the food source or just the waste products, like the corn husks) right now. The duckweed is supposed to have a higher starch content, making it a more efficient process…?
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December 5, 2009 at 10:02 pm
interesting article about the potential for duckweed to treat waste water, and be used for ethanol production. The duckweed family looks very promising for use as a biological form of waste water treatment, and if as a biproduct of this can be benefitial all the better. Using the stach to create ethanol is a good idea, but I am more interested in the macrophytes application as a supliment for feeding farmed fish, and as a suppliment for poultry. Among the high starch content, duckweeds have a high fat and protien content relative to other plants. I think that there is still a lot to learn about the amazing abilities of this family of palnts, and many uses to be discovered, but even though it looks so promising for fuel production, we need to cut back on our use in the developed world, and start thinking about what we can do to help the people that aren’t as interested in fuel as in food. (sorry about poor grammer, english is poor)
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January 12, 2010 at 4:59 pm
Very interesting!!! I will have to search more about this “duck week” stuff.
thanks, J