In Business, Creating Sustainable Enterprises & Communities

LAUNCHING BIOPRODUCTS AT AN ECOINDUSTRIAL INCUBATOR

In Business, November-December, 2004, Vol. 26, No. 6, p. 28

Rutgers University EcoComplex in New Jersey gives commercial push to green fuels, liquid organic fertilizers, microturbine spinoffs and aquaculture.

Nora Goldstein

IT'S NOT OFTEN you follow a garbage truck into a landfill and discover a whole new world of ecoentrepreneurism. But turn into the Burlington County, New Jersey Resource Recovery Complex and you'll find just that, starting with the Rutgers University EcoComplex right by the entrance, which houses a sustainable business incubator. Further back in the complex, you'll discover a 46,000-sq. ft. greenhouse heated and powered by landfill gas. “When we developed the Master Plan for the Resource Recovery Complex in the late 1970s, it was always the county's intention to co-locate all of its solid waste processing, treatment, resource recovery and recycling facilities at the same location as the landfill to take advantage of potential synergies - even though we were not sure of the full nature of the possibilities,” recalls Robert Simkins, Director of the Burlington County Resource Recovery Complex (RRC). Over the years, other solid waste operations have indeed co-located at the landfill, including a cocomposting facility, a household hazardous waste facility and a wood recycling operation. But the resource recovery park has evolved into something much broader - a home for innovation and entrepreneurship, research, education and technology development, all within a framework of a partnership between Burlington County and Rutgers University.

ENTER THE LANDFILL GAS
When the landfill opened in 1989, the county had a limited system in place to manage the landfill gas generated. During the first five years, it didn't appear to be an issue, as staff were not detecting any landfill gas odors. Then, in 1996, while Burlington County was in the process of going out to contract to have wells installed to capture methane, the odors hit. “They came fast and furiously,” says Simkins. “That is when we had the wake-up call on landfill gas generation and management and knew we had to get more serious and aggressive about it.” Flares were installed, but Simkins notes, it had always been part of the county's plan to recover the energy from the landfill gas. Discussions began in the early 1990s about building a cogeneration plant that would use the landfill gas to produce electricity. But Burlington County had other ideas as well, he explains. “When we were preparing the Master Plan, everyone agreed that the Complex would be a great place to do research, and a great place to teach students of all ages and the public at large about recycling, energy recovery, composting, and so forth. In addition, we had always wanted to develop a research and education relationship with Rutgers University, the state university.”
An opportunity to collaborate with Rutgers arose shortly thereafter. The university had a small greenhouse on campus. Researchers had been working on a single cluster hydroponic tomato production system that had the potential to boost plant production in a shorter growing cycle. The university was looking for a place to demonstrate the production system and had been considering a location at a power plant, in order to take advantage of the waste heat. Robert Shinn, a former Burlington County Freeholder (county legislator) who had participated in development of the solid waste master plan, was serving at that time as a state legislator. “Mr. Shinn heard about the greenhouse project and spoke with the people at Rutgers,” says Simkins. “After learning the details, he thought that would be an innovative project to bring to the Burlington County Resource Recovery Complex, using the landfill gas to heat and light the greenhouse.”
The Burlington County Board of Freeholders agreed to have the greenhouse constructed, using funds from landfill tipping fees. Rutgers designed the 46,000-sq. ft. facility, which opened in 1996. The boiler initially was fueled by propane until a gas line was run to the greenhouse. The landfill methane fueled the boiler, which in turn provided heating for the greenhouse. The single cluster (truss) tomato plants are grown at a high population density to maximize facility production. (Plants are topped-off above the first cluster of flowers, forcing the plant to channel its energy into the remaining cluster, yielding larger and more flavorful fruit.) Through an agreement with the Occupational Training Center (OTC) of Burlington County, the greenhouse provides employment for people with disabilities. A goal of the greenhouse program was to transfer the technology to growers. At the time it was constructed, it was estimated that there were more than 140 biogas generation sites in New Jersey that would be suitable for greenhouse operations. About two years ago, four 30 kW Capstone microturbines were installed outside of the greenhouse. The microturbines convert landfill gas into electricity that is used in the greenhouse, e.g. for growing lights. Waste heat is recovered from the turbines and used to heat the greenhouse when ambient temperatures require it.

ENTER THE ECOCOMPLEX
As it turned out, the collaboration with Rutgers University on the greenhouse was just the beginning of a partnership that has blossomed into a full-fledged research and education facility and business incubator owned and operated by Rutgers and located at the RRC. The Rutgers EcoComplex is part of the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station. “We refer to the EcoComplex as an environmental research and extension center,” explains David Specca, acting Director of the EcoComplex. “A traditional experiment station/extension center does applied R&D for farmers, who then can benefit from the technology transfer. Being close to the landfill allows us to do research around the resources available at a landfill, exploring agricultural and environmental opportunities. We also have a business incubator to provide assistance to start-up, environmentally based companies.” Because Burlington County has restrictions on its tax-free bonds used to construct the landfill and other solid waste facilities in the RRC, all private sector activities are done through the Rutgers EcoComplex.
The seed for the EcoComplex concept was planted during development of the greenhouse. Dr. William “Rod” Sharp, at that time Dean of Research at Cook College (where the New Jersey Ag Experiment Station is based) at Rutgers University, was exploring the concept of joining forces with other universities in the region to research and then scale-up environmental technologies. The business opportunities around the greenhouse - both for agriculture and for utilization of landfill gas - led Sharp, Shinn, Simkins, Harry Janes (Department of Plant Biology & Pathology at Rutgers) and others to the concept of the Rutgers EcoComplex. (Sharp left Cook College a few years ago and is currently involved in a project in Brazil to start an EcoComplex, which could work in tandem with the Rutgers EcoComplex.)
In 2001, a 32,000-sq. ft. facility was opened, which houses the county's solid waste and recycling offices, the business incubator, research laboratories, and a 180-seat auditorium. Companies in the incubator include Acrion Technologies, Inc., which developed a carbon dioxide wash system to clean up landfill gas for multiple uses; Garden State Ethanol, a consortium of farmers building a corn-to-ethanol plant in southern New Jersey; HydroGlobe, a water filtration company specializing in arsenic removal; and TerraCycle, a company that makes liquid fertilizer out of vermicompost tea.

GROWING OPPORTUNITIES
At the greenhouse, the research and innovations continue. In addition to testing microturbines, plans are in the works for installing a fuel cell to provide electricity, heat and carbon dioxide for operations. In the near future, a pilot-scale anaerobic digester will be installed right outside the greenhouse, processing food residuals from a local assisted living facility and plant waste from the greenhouse. Digester gas will be piped to the microturbine. Inside the greenhouse, an aquaponics operation is in full swing, growing tilapia for sale to area fish markets. Wastewater from the fish tanks is used to fertilize hydroponic plants; the plants remove nutrients in the water, allowing the water to be reused in the fish tanks.

FUELING UP WHEN AND WHERE YOU NEED IT - AN EXAMPLE OF PROFITABLE PARTNERING
BILL BROWN, cofounder of Acrion Technologies based in Cleveland, Ohio, became involved with the Rutgers University EcoComplex when he met Bob Simkins of Burlington County at a New Jersey tradeshow on landfill gas technologies in 1996. “Bob saw our display of smoking dry ice and thought our technology would have application at the greenhouse,” recalls Brown.
Acrion's technology removes siloxane contaminants from landfill gas to below a detection limit of 5 parts per billion. Siloxane compounds deteriorate rotor blades, spark plugs and other engine parts when raw landfill gas is used without cleaning it. The CO2 wash process removes hydrogen sulfides, VOCs and siloxane and produces a food grade liquid CO2 and methane. Clean landfill gas can be used in fuel cells, as well as converted to liquid or compressed natural gas.
In the late 1990s, Acrion submitted an application for a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Small Business Innovation Research grant to demonstrate its technology using raw landfill gas that would generate clean methane and food grade CO2. Acrion received the grant. The EcoComplex facility, which was to house the equipment for the research and an Acrion office, was still under construction. “We moved equipment there in 2000, ahead of the building's completion,” says Brown. “Then, in the summer and fall of 2001, we ran the equipment to generate the data required under the DOE grant. We were the first ones at the EcoComplex - before the toilets even worked - and we have been there ever since.”
In 2002, Acrion began working with Mack Trucks, which supplies the majority of trash collection trucks in the U.S. The two companies, in conjunction with a DOE office in Brookhaven, New York, worked out a pilot test, where two new dedicated natural gas Mack trucks manufactured for Waste Management would run on liquid natural gas made from clean landfill methane. Chart Industries supplied the fueling station and liquid methane storage tank for installation at the EcoComplex. Landfill gas is fed into the Acrion unit, which is located in the technology transfer laboratory of the EcoComplex. The clean methane is condensed using liquid nitrogen (supplied by Air Products & Chemicals), which yields liquid natural gas. The two trash trucks go out on their collection route, tip their loads at the landfill, then refuel at the EcoComplex building. The pilot ran from August through December 2004; Mack Trucks and Acrion are exploring continuation of the pilot project next spring after a brief winter shut down.
Brown reports that Acrion and its partner firm, Green Energy in Irvine, California, have started developing a commercial-scale project at the Franklin County Landfill in Columbus, Ohio. The project has contracted to take at least 3 million cubic feet/day of landfill gas and convert it to methyl alcohol, producing about 15,000 gallons/day. “Methyl alcohol is a commodity chemical,” he explains. “It can be used as a fuel, and in fact, is being considered for fuel cells as it is a good carrier of hydrogen.”