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EPA Grant Number: SU833527
Title: Sewage Off-Gas-Driven Fuel Cells to Stimulate Rural Electrification
Illinois Institute of Technology undergraduate and graduate students, in concert with high school students from the Illinois Math and Science Academy, will study a power-generating system that creates electricity from decomposing organic waste. The system captures methane gas given off from the waste and uses it to power a fuel cell that generates electricity. The system also recycles the heat generated by the fuel cell into the waste decomposition process to enable its year-round operation outdoors in rural areas situated at higher latitudes and elevations. The system would have enormous value to poor, rural communities worldwide that need ways to deal with their waste and have little or no electric power.