Current research at the University is offering potential solutions to American dependence on foreign oil, and the world’s finite supply of crude petroleum.

A team led by Yuanhui Zhang, professor of bioengineering, has invented a reactor that converts swine manure to oil, through a process called thermochemical conversion.

The new conversion technique is a cost-effective way to handle livestock waste.

“Millions of dollars are spent annually on swine manure storage, transport and land application,” Zhang said. “Swine manure, once regarded as a valuable natural fertilizer, has now become an expensive burden on the pork industry.”

The reactor is capable of converting 70 percent of manure to oil in one cycle. One hog’s lifetime output of waste can produce 21 gallons of crude oil, adding a $10 profit to each hog.

If the technology develops and commercializes, he said, it would add $1 billion in value to the United States hog industry.

“We have two lab reactors, the batch reactor and the continuous reactor,” Zhang said. “But we are in the process of working to build a plant.”

The conversion process begins on the floors of finisher rooms at the ACES Swine Research Farm, where fresh manure is collected. After testing, the manure is fed into the TCC reactor, which holds about two liters of material. The reactor then chemically reforms the manure through extreme heat and pressure in an oxygen-deficient environment.

The resulting products are solids in the form of char and dirt, gases such as carbon dioxide, liquids containing potassium and phosphorous, and crude oil. The oil is initially tar-like, but resembles diesel oil in consistency and chemical make-up after refining.

Only swine manure has been proven to produce these results, but ongoing research is being done with other types of livestock waste.

“If you look at the energy content in the oil, you get roughly three times the content in the oil than it takes to convert it,” said Ted Funk, extension specialist in agricultural engineering.

According to the Energy Information Administration’s 2005 International Energy Outlook, world oil consumption is expected to grow from 29 billion barrels per year in 2002 to 44 billion barrels per year in 2025. Under these growth assumptions, nearly half of the world’s total oil resources would be exhausted by 2025.

Developing efficient and reliable non-conventional sources of oil is important because they are renewable sources of energy, said Christina Kielich, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Energy.

“Biomass is one of our most important energy resources,” Kielich said. “Biomass use strengthens rural economies, decreases America’s dependence on imported oil, . reduces air and water pollution, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions.”

Kielich noted that biomass has been the largest U.S. renewable energy source per year since 2000 and also provides the only renewable alternative for liquid transportation fuel.