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PDFFrom Gizmag:
Some readers might remember the Mr. Fusion unit in Back to the Future that Doc Brown fills with household garbage, including a banana peel and some beer, to power the iconic time-traveling DeLorean. While we’re still some way from such direct means of running our cars on table scraps, researchers at Fraunhofer have developed a pilot plant that ferments the waste from wholesale fruit and veg markets, cafeterias and canteens to make methane, which can be used to power vehicles.
Given the rising oil prices in recent years, many drivers have been converting their cars to run on natural gas. But like oil, natural gas is a fossil fuel with limited reserves whose price has also risen in recent years and is likely to continue to do so. Fraunhofer’s development provides an alternative way to obtain natural gas, not from Earth’s reserves, but from fruit and vegetable waste.
The pilot plant is part of the ETAMAX project and has been constructed adjacent to Stuttgart’s wholesale market. Due to begin operation in the next few months, the plant generates methane by using various microorganisms that act on the food waste in a two-stage digestion process that lasts just a few days.
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