Thanks to the work of Sabrina Summers and her University of Illinois research teammates, you might be able to power your car with your dinner leftovers someday.
Summers is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering (ABE) and member of iSEE’s Environment-Enhancing Food-Energy-Water Systems (E-E FEWS) Project team. Led by ABE Professor Yuanhui Zhang, E-E FEWS specifically focuses on hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL), a type of thermochemical conversion that turns biomass into biocrude oil.
Before coming to the Midwest, Summers grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii, and earned two undergraduate degrees from the University of Hawaii at Manoa — one in Biological Engineering and the other in Chemistry. During her undergrad years, Summers did biomass conversion research at the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute. She was drawn more than 4,000 miles to Urbana-Champaign because of the research programs here; E-E FEWS is all about biomass — specifically in the form of food waste.
The HTL reactor puts biowaste solids through high-heat and high-pressure conditions, essentially mimicking the natural geologic conditions that create petroleum. Here’s the catch: Instead of taking millions of years, this oil is ready in hours or even minutes. The biocrude oil is then processed further and used as a fossil fuel substitute.
“We take food waste, we convert it into a bio-oil, and then we turn that into transportation fuel like diesel and jet fuel,” Summers said. “That circular paradigm of waste to energy can be applicable to a lot of parts of society.”
Summers’s work is specifically focused on the latter half of the process: refining the biocrude oil. Before this technology can be implemented on a larger scale, more efficient ways to manage the wastewater and remove contaminants need to be found. Once scientists master this step, E-E FEWS has great potential to put climate change-curbing technology in everybody’s hands.
The upgraded HTL reactor. Credit: Sabrina Summers
In fact, E-E FEWS — originally seed-funded through iSEE’s Campus as a Living Laboratory program in 2018 and also supported by the Student Sustainability Committee (SSC) — recently claimed nearly $1M in two new grants from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC). These huge funds will propel E-E FEWS far.
“Getting large amounts of funding from the DOE and Army Corps can help us address more specific questions and bigger scopes of work,” Summers said. “But smaller groups like the SSC are also important: Being able to advance campus initiatives can help us identify with more of the local stakeholders, who may not necessarily relate with the larger funding sources.”
The SSC funding is more specifically aimed at converting campus dining hall food waste into renewable energy, leading to multifaceted benefits.
“We will reduce waste on campus and also produce energy to power campus. In doing this, we’ve created pilot-scale technology to be applied to the regional area. Then, these results can be applied on a national level,” Summers said. “The ultimate goal is for the pilot-scale technology to be placed in different areas so that we have more local energy producers within the bigger energy network.”
E-E FEWS operations take place at three campus locations. One lab, responsible for the refining processes, is in the ABE Building on the South Quad. The pilot reactor that performs the HTL process is at the South Farms. And another refining lab is on the South Farms, too.
Team members plan to host community engagement activities in the future because, of course, what good is green innovation if no one knows about it?
The E-E FEWS research group.
“We’re planning to present these results as extension activities to engage local community members here and teach them about the value of these energy systems and how it could benefit them,” Summers said.
E-E FEWS also collaborates with organizations beyond the University of Illinois campus, like Princeton University, Cal POLY, Pacific Northwest National Lab, and private Californian firm MicroBio Engineering, all striving toward waste-to-energy goals that will put green technology in the hands of everyday people.
After she completes her Ph.D., Summers will continue research work in the bioenergy field, likely at a national lab, pursuing the passion she’s always had.
“Growing up on an island, I learned early about our dependence on imported products, especially fuel,” she said. “I became really interested in sustainability and fossil fuels. I knew I wanted to study renewable energy.”
— Article by iSEE Communications Intern Maria Maring
Urbana, Ill. — The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has announced funding for a new project led by iSEE Interim Director Madhu Khanna to optimize design for “agrivoltaic” systems — fields with both crops and solar panels — that will maintain crop production, produce renewable energy, and increase farm profitability.
This $10 million, four-year project, funded through the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Sustainable Agriculture Systems program with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as the lead institution, will study agrivoltaics in a variety of land types and climate scenarios (Illinois, Colorado, Arizona).
“For centuries, humans have used the benefits of the sun to produce food and energy — and only in recent decades has humanity turned to harvesting solar for renewable energy,” said Khanna, the ACES Distinguished Professor of Agricultural & Consumer Economics at Illinois. “But to produce solar energy at the utility scale is land intensive, and cropland is often the most suitable for this purpose.”
While solar has become more profitable for land use, concerns have arisen that it could cut into food production. And some counties have now prohibited large-scale photovoltaic arrays from replacing agricultural land.
“Agrivoltaics — co-locating energy and food production — has the potential to reduce this competition for land,” Khanna said. “Our proposed project for Sustainably Colocating Agricultural and Photovoltaic Electricity Systems (SCAPES) will provide a comprehensive analysis of the transformative potential of agrivoltaics. Our goal is to maintain or even increase crop yield, increase the combined (food and electricity) productivity of land, and diversify and increase farmers’ profits with row crops, forage, and specialty crops across a range of environments.”
Illinois agrivoltaics investigators include Khanna; Carl Bernacchi, USDA Agricultural Research Service Plant Physiologist; Bruce Branham, Professor of Crop Sciences; Evan H. DeLucia, Arends Professor Emeritus of Plant Biology; D.K. Lee, Professor of Crop Sciences; Kaiyu Guan, Associate Professor of Natural Resources & Environmental Sciences; H. Chad Lane, Associate Professor of Educational Psychology and Computer Science; Nenad Miljkovic, Associate Professor of Mechanical Science & Engineering; Samantha Lindgren, Assistant Professor of Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership; Nuria Gomez-Casanovas, Visiting Research Specialist at iSEE; and Bin Peng, Postdoctoral Research Associate at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.
The Illinois team will partner with Dennis Bowman at the U of I Extension for agrivoltaics outreach activities. Additionally, the grant features a combination of research, education, and extension subawards for the University of Arizona, Colorado State University, Auburn University, the University of Illinois Chicago, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
iSEE and the Illinois Regenerative Agriculture Initiative helped U of I researchers become part of a $10M project that seeks to make Midwestern agriculture more resilient by diversifying farms, marketing, and the agricultural landscape.
NIFA selected the Purdue University-led project titled “#DiverseCornBelt: Resilient Intensification through Diversity in Midwestern Agriculture,” which has a multidisciplinary team that spans the life, physical and social sciences.
Assistant Professor Andrew Margenot and Professor Emily Heaton, both in the Department of Crop Sciences, will use their $1.7M subaward to supervise students conducting biophysical measurements of cropping system function over a range of diverse crop practices. “We are excited to be working on this high-impact, regional project that is directly aligned with ISEE and IRAI,” Heaton said. “This project will let us identify ways to diversify the corn belt ecosystem that also increase rural prosperity.”
Other partner institutions on the project include the American Society of Agronomy, Conservation Technology Information Center, USDA Economic Research Service, USDA Forest Service, Illinois State University, Iowa State University, Montana State University, The Nature Conservancy, Practical Farmers of Iowa, University of Iowa, University of Minnesota, University of Wisconsin Madison, and UW Platteville.
“The Midwest has unmatched biophysical potential when it comes to agriculture: inherently fertile soils, ample rainfall and growing season,” Margenot said. “These natural resources can be used in multiple ways to meet rural communities’ and larger U.S. society’s needs: What are the trade-offs among these, from agronomic to environmental to socioeconomic outcomes? What are barriers and opportunities? In this work, a team of researchers across multiple Midwestern states will tackle these interdisciplinary questions. At the University of Illinois, we’re proud to spearhead the biophysical evaluation of agroecosystem sustainability.”
Update from Oct. 20, 2021: iSEE brings in total of $34.7M
$15M NSF Grant Creates I-GUIDE Geospatial Center. iSEE has helped facilitate funding to enable geospatial data-driven scientific discovery at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and the resulting research will lead to better understanding of the risks and impacts of climate change and disasters. The $15 million Institute for Geospatial Understanding through an Integrative Discovery Environment (I-GUIDE) will receive the funding over five years as part of the National Science Foundation’s Harnessing the Data Revolution, which establishes five institutes across the United States to explore questions at the frontiers of science and engineering. Shaowen Wang, Professor and Head of Geography and Geographic Information Science and Founding Director of the CyberGIS Center for Advanced Digital and Spatial Studies, will lead the institute. Collaborating scientists and institutions will work with the CyberGIS Center in partnership with iSEE and the U of I’s Discovery Partners Institute.
$2.1M in additional five-year funding from the Leverhulme Centre for Climate Change Mitigation for U of I researchers, led by Evan DeLucia (Emeritus Professor of Plant Biology), Carl Bernacchi (U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service), and new co-PI Lisa Ainsworth (USDA ARS) to extend the campus’s enhanced weathering experiments using basalt rock on farm fields.
$2M+ from NSF’s Smart & Connected Communities program for a team led by Crop Sciences Assistant Professor Andrew Margenot to build a “Nutrient Management Community (NuMC)” to help farmers adopt effective and trusted tools that will help address critical water quality issues.
A $1M, two-year grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to bolster an iSEE 2020 seed-funded project to turn ash into energy. The Rapid AI-based Dissection of Ashes using Raman and XRF Spectroscopy (RADAR-X) Project, led by Civil & Environmental Engineering (CEE) Assistant Professor Nishant Garg, will develop rapid, real-time analysis of the ashes — then explore numerous composition-dependent end uses.
One of iSEE’s original 2018 Campus as a Living Laboratory projects received nearly $1M from DOE and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Led by Agricultural & Biological Engineering Professor Yuanhui Zhang, the Environment-Enhancing Food, Energy, and Water Systems project is testing a livestock waste processing system that can deliver renewable energy as well as clean water and some bonus organic ag fertilizers.
Another 2020 iSEE seed-funded project led by Blue Waters and Natural Resources & Environmental Sciences (NRES) Associate Professor Kaiyu Guan to monitor crop nitrogen status was granted $1M from the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR).
A $518,000 subaward for NRES Professor Jeffrey Brawn and CEE Associate Professor Jeremy Guest from the U.S. Geological Survey for the University of Minnesota-led Midwest Climate Adaptation Science Center (CASC) consortium. The eight partner institutions will advance scientific research and education in response to climate change impacts in the Midwest.
A $500,000 subaward for Guan from DOE for a project led by Alder Energy to convert biomass into aviation fuel.
— iSEE Communications & Public Affairs Director Tony Mancuso
An exploration of the Bitcoin gold rush — and its impact on the fossil fuel industry — is the top winner in the second annual Janelle Joseph Prize for Environmental Writing, curated by the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE).
In all, five University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign undergraduates were honored in the contest, created through the generosity of iSEE supporter Janelle Joseph.
Entrants competed for cash prizes and the chance to have their work published in Q Magazine, the flagship student environmental writing publication at Illinois and a product of the undergraduate Certificate in Environmental Writing (CEW) program. Q tackles big environmental questions, such as human-caused climate change and threats to the environment, wildlife, and health.
The Joseph Prize winners used their talent to highlight key environmental concerns, from bioenergy research to climate activism to waterway ecosystems.
“We continue to be impressed by the caliber of our student writers, who bring fresh perspectives to these important issues,” said Professor Gillen Wood, CEW Director for iSEE and Q Editor. “Thanks to the generous support from Janelle Joseph, we are able to share their research and insight.”
The Grand Prize Winner was Tyler Swanson, who will receive a $1,000 award for his piece, “Fossil-Fueled Revenants: How Bitcoin is Revitalizing America’s Defunct Fossil Fuel Operations.” Swanson highlights the case of Dresden, N.Y., a village near Seneca Lake where Bitcoin “revived a once dead fossil-fueled power plant into a veritable goldmine, destroying the local ecosystem along the way.
“As demand for Bitcoin grows, more companies emerge to mine for this digital gold, resulting in the resurrection of long-dormant power plants, creating revenants from the fossil-fueled past America is trying to leave behind for a clean energy future,” writes Swanson, a junior majoring in Agricultural and Consumer Economics with a concentration in Environmental Economics and Policy. His article will highlight next spring’s issue of Q.
The category winners:
Memoir: Michelle Verlinsky for “Your Life in America,” about her personal struggle with the effects of industrial agriculture on our air and water. Verlinsky is a senior majoring in Social Psychology and Earth, Society, and Environmental Sustainability (ESES).
Feature: Erinn Dady for her article on riparian zones, the lush and incredibly biodiverse areas along waterways, with a focus on the Vermilion and Wabash rivers. Dady is a senior majoring in ESES.
Op-Ed: Kayla Vittore for “Biofuels: Maybe not a Silver Bullet but Silver Stepping-Stones,” outlining the promise and pitfalls of bioenergy research. Vittore is a senior majoring in Plant Biotechnology.
Illinois-Themed Article: Julia Marsaglia for “The Ripple Effect of Activism,” which examines climate activism through the eyes of Illinois scholars and sustainability advocates. Marsaglia is a senior majoring in ESES.
All four category winners will receive $500 prizes and have their work published in upcoming issues of Q.
The writing contest, which is offered annually, is open to Illinois undergraduates from any major, geared toward those with an interest in writing and the environment. Stay tuned to the iSEE website for details on the 2022 contest!
May 2024 update: iSEE Intern Madison Holcomb interviewed Nicholas Puddicombe, Siebel’s Senior Associate Director of Operations & Experience, about the building’s sustainable features. Listen here:
A wooden ceiling and gray brick-tiled floor extend past the entry doors on both sides of Siebel Center for Design, creating a seamless pathway for visitors to pass through the heart of the newly opened facility.
This combination of earthy materials with the glass entryways provides a cue that the building itself is one with nature, graceful and non-disrupting to the environment.
The continuity between the structure and nature is evident as you walk through the Gallery, a sleek common space spanning the first level of the building.
The seating area near the Starlight Cafe offers expansive outdoor views, above. At top, native landscaping surrounds much of the building. Credits: Quinn Wolski
The nearby Starlight Cafe is equipped with seating to enjoy the scenery just outside, whether you’re intently working or just relaxing. With its entire north and east walls made of glass, this space lends a new perspective to the typical campus lounge. The setting provides an ideal amount of natural light and the feel of being on a deck overlooking the warm glow of the landscaping. Just as naturally it can be converted to the exact opposite — a black-out multimedia space with remote-controlled shades.
The purpose in the design of Siebel Center rests in its ability to make each space, element, and view as versatile and seamless as possible. This is achieved by incorporating the environment naturally in each space while creating the least amount of disturbance to the landscape.
A raw concrete ramp and stairs build a slow descent to the lower level. From above, large cylinder skylights are scattered throughout the roof, flooding the lower level with direct sunlight.
The Shop on the lower level is tucked away from the glow of the skylights above, making it a difficult area to access nature. To solve this issue, the designers included a window spanning the upper wall on the south and east ends of the workspace to capitalize on the limited natural openings available.
Despite being only a couple of feet high, the window will allow the low-winter sun to track directly across the room, providing additional light and heat through the cold season.
Natural light can strategically enter the building, filling each space with brightness and energy. This is a purposeful element in much of the design to minimize the use of artificial lights during the day. In fact, artificial lighting has been used only minimally in the short time the facility has been in operation, according to Lisa Bralts, Associate Director of Marketing at the center. Even when artificial lighting is necessary, switches are set in increments of 20, 50, and 100 percent to allow judicious use.
A series of solar panels line the roof, allowing nearly 20 percent of the building’s energy to be created on-site. This saves on energy purchases while using nature as intended.
The design team also created workspaces that can be transformed so that the building can mold to patrons as well as the environment. The furniture is movable in every workspace. The intention is to diverge from the rigid arrangement of many university buildings and foster a sense of community and creativity in each person who enters.
The building’s donor, Thomas Siebel, understands the importance of versatility. Siebel was an interdisciplinary academic who attended Illinois for history as an undergraduate. He then moved on to focus his career on interdisciplinary opportunities within computer science and business.
As a tribute to the value of interdisciplinary studies that contribute profound research to the University of Illinois, an interactive, augmented reality mural has been installed in the Gallery. The mural offers an immersive experience into the history and future of interdisciplinary work on campus and provides a hub for visitors to learn about those who continue pushing the boundaries of what is achievable at Illinois.
With some of the best design equipment found on campus, Siebel Center has the tools to see a project through from sketches to prototypes. An all-inclusive audio/video multimedia room will provide space for photography, video, audio, music, and other multimedia projects. Siebel Center for Design defines itself as a space for the design side and business side of a project to work simultaneously. It fosters efficiency at every turn, allowing a design idea to grow from start to finish in a single facility.
Sustainable design means so much more than creating a small margin of energy savings or slightly incorporating the environment into a structure. The center flows seamlessly from nature to indoor space, allowing the environment to completely embody the structure.
The native prairie plants in the landscaping and beautiful nature pathway lining the south side of the building respect the history of the land on which it sits. Meanwhile, the interior design serves to highlight those elements, and the building becomes intertwined with its surroundings. Siebel achieves this scope of sustainability in every choice of design and every choice of material.
To create an opulent building that still manages to reduce its impact on the land and avoids disrupting the natural beauty that surrounds it is no small feat. The architectural design team at Bohlin Cywinski Jackson provided Illinois with a state-of-the-art sustainable building that respects the landscape’s past while addressing some of the largest influences on design in a changing global climate.
