Tour highlights northeast Ohio composting and bioenergy facilities

WOOSTER, Ohio — Ohio State University’s Ohio Composting and Manure Management Program will lead a public tour of three state-of-the-art composting and bioenergy facilities in northeast Ohio Sept. 25.

The program, centered on anaerobic digestion and composting, starts at the City of Akron Biogas and Composting Facilities, 2677 Riverview Road, at 8:45 a.m.

Participants will then drive to Ohio State’s Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, 1680 Madison Ave., Wooster, for lunch and a composting research update by scientist Fred Michel of OARDC and Ohio State University Extension.

Also included is a stop at the new Schmack BioEnergy Analytical Laboratory and the OARDC composting site.

Site details

The Akron plant processes some 90 million gallons of liquid sludge a year, dewaters that sludge to about 15,000 dry tons of solids and now treats about a third of the solids in a new anaerobic digester.

The system yields biogas that fuels a generator; the generator produces electricity that helps power the plant. The rest of the solids get turned into soil blends.

The Schmack lab, located in OARDC’s new BioHio Research Park, gives engineering support to the company’s biogas plants, which produce both natural gas and electricity.

It analyzes feedstock energy potential and environmental benefits and optimizes feedstock mixtures, operating parameters and equipment needs.

The OARDC composting site, built in 2000, processes dairy manure and other organic materials from the campus. It uses windrows with intermittent aeration and drains runoff to constructed wetland treatment cells.

Details

Registration costs $25 with lunch or $20 without lunch and is due by Sept. 17.

Register by sending your name, address, telephone number and e-mail address and a check for the registration fee (made payable to OARDC/OSU) to Mary Wicks, Ag Engineering Building, OARDC/OSU, 1680 Madison Ave., Wooster, OH 44691.

For more information, contact Wicks at 330-202-3533 or e-mail wicks.14@osu.edu.