The role of anaerobic digestion of food waste in contributing to the UK’s Net Zero target

Seminar
This event has now finished.
  • Date and time: Wednesday 23 February 2022, 2pm to 3.30pm
  • Location: In-person only
    B/M/052 Lecture Room, Biology M Block, Biology Building, Campus West, University of York (Map)
  • Audience: Open to staff, students (postgraduate researchers only)
  • Admission: Free admission, booking required

Event details

Join this Waste and Resource Use Network meeting looking at the role of anaerobic digestion of food waste in contributing to the UK’s Net Zero target

Achieving Net Zero emissions by 2050 will require extended research into ready-to- use renewable energy systems like anaerobic digestion (AD). The science of the role of
biomethane to contribute to the Net Zero delivery is becoming well understood. Unlike other “physical” energy systems, the AD system being biological in its nature means that it is difficult to put its working principles in a simple mathematical formula. However, it provides multiple opportunities to optimise the biochemical interactions within the system to deliver beyond what is mathematically expected. In this seminar, I will present my previous works on optimising the anaerobic digestion of food waste for high quality biomethane production and future plans to investigate this research on a larger scale.

About the Speaker

Dr Cynthia Kusin Okoro-Shekwaga obtained her MSc in 2014 at the University of Leeds, during which she investigated the use of microalgae for sludge liquor treatment, biomass production and renewable energy recovery. She also obtained her PhD from the University of Leeds in 2019, where she investigated the improvement of biomethane yield and biogas quality from food waste AD using sequential process optimisation and biomethanation. Since completing her PhD in 2019, she has been working as a Research Fellow at the University of Leeds, supporting the BBSRC funded project on Bioenergy, Fertiliser and Clean Water fromClimate Change and Sanitation; Assessing Resilience and Emissions (SCARE). She has recently been awarded the BBSRC Discovery Fellowship to advance her research on the AD of food waste using integrated biological approaches.

Agenda

14:00 - 15:00 Seminar followed by Q&A session

15:00 - 15:30 Refreshements and a chance to chat informally