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23/03/2011
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Aston University is building £16.5m engineering laboratories to showcase and develop renewable low carbon technologies, including a biomass fuelled power plant.
 Due to open on the Aston, Birmingham campus in October next year (2012), the facility will include giant photo bioreactors, harnessing algae, and a 0.4MWel small scale industrial power plant, fuelled by biomass.
Professor Andreas Hornung, head of the European Bioenergy Research Institute at Aston University, says the plant will generate heat and power from biomass, using algae, sewage sludge, wood and agricultural waste as sources of fuel.
It will also generate biomass by-products including hydrogen power for low carbon vehicles or fuel cells, and Biochar for use as an agricultural fertiliser and hydrogen production.
Hornung states that a long-term research ambition is to create a 'thermal ring' of small scale industrial power plants around Birmingham. This could divert biodegradable waste away from landfill and incineration, to feed energy back into the National Grid.
"EBRI will be using these laboratories to develop biomass technologies that in no way conflict with food production and are solely planned to operate on biogenic wastes," comments Hornung.
"We want to divert waste materials from going directly to landfill or incineration for example, and harness the enormous untapped resources of biomass.
"Our new facility will showcase to industry how biomass can produce real-life solutions to tackling waste, with both environmental and financial benefits."
EBRI is working with a range of companies to develop alternative energy solutions, including Severn Trent Water, in a project to transform sewage sludge into energy and collaboration with Johnson Matthey to transform gases into fuels for heat and power engines.
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Author
Brian Tinham
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