Global Food Concerns Focus of New Center for Innovation
More than 80 faculty from 12 colleges at Ohio State are pooling their expertise to address global issues in food supply, food policy, and nutrition and health. Backed by $3.75 million in university funding, the Food Innovation Center will focus on four themes: designing foods for health, ensuring food safety, advancing biomedical nutrition in disease prevention and health promotion, and examining global food strategy and policy.
The center is taking on a tremendous challenge, said Ken Lee, professor of food science and technology and project director.
"Feeding the rapidly growing world population--a projected 8 billion by 2025--will require a 40 percent increase in the world food supply," Lee said. "At the same time, we are wasting 40 percent of the current supply due to challenges in economics, safety, health, nutrition, security, technology, and food policy. But it's this kind of mission-oriented research that can tackle these issues."
Dr. Steve Clinton, a co-principal investigator and professor of internal medicine, said the center capitalizes on Ohio State's diversity.
"You can count on a few fingers the number of academic institutions that have colleges of agriculture, business, public health, and veterinary medicine, integrated programs in human nutrition and food science, as well as a Comprehensive Cancer Center, on one single campus," Clinton said. "The new center can propel us to academic prominence and contribute solutions to critical global challenges."
The center is one of two new Centers for Innovation at Ohio State. Funded by the Office of Academic Affairs and Office of Research, each is receiving $750,000 a year for five years. The other center is the OSU International Poverty Solutions Collaborative.
"There very well could be some synergies between the two centers," Lee said. "We're both interested in health and well-being, and food and poverty issues have similar challenges."
More information on Ohio State's Centers for Innovation is available at http://research.osu. edu/innovation/.
--By Martha Filipic
It's a Gas--and It's Good for Environment, Economy
Green energy invention can double biogas output, fetches $2 million Third Frontier grant
Anaerobic digestion--the process of breaking down organic matter in the absence of oxygen to produce methane for electricity and fuel applications--is one of the technologies Ohio is betting on to lead the way in the age of renewable energy.
Now, a patent-pending process developed by OARDC biosystems engineer Yebo Li could double the amount of biogas produced through anaerobic digestion, making this technology more economically feasible for large green energy generation in places with large biomass resources--such as Ohio.
Li's invention is a "solid-state biodigester," which makes it possible to produce methane from abundant sources of cellulosic biomass such as yard trimmings and crop residue. Current biodigesters use liquid wastestreams such as manure and sewer sludge, limiting the amount of solids that goes into the process, and with it the overall biogas output.
"Biogas comes from the solids present in the anaerobic digestion process," explained Li, an assistant professor in the Department of Food, Agricultural, and Biological Engineering and also a specialist with OSU Extension. "Current liquid-phase anaerobic digesters used in the United States can only process up to 14 percent solids content. My system has been successfully tested with 20–40 percent solids content, substantially increasing biogas production efficiency compared to existing systems."
Businesses and government are taking notice. Since 2008, Cleveland-based quasar energy group (which has an engineering office and a lab on OARDC's Wooster campus) has been working with Li to optimize his technology for commercial use. And last December, the state of Ohio's Third Frontier Advanced Energy Program gave quasar a $2 million grant to put the new technology --dubbed iADs, or integrated anaerobic digestion system--to the test.
The grant will allow quasar to demonstrate iADs technology at its flagship biogas facility currently being built at OARDC, adding a solid-state digestion system to its liquid biodigester. The integrated system will be able to process over 30,000 wet tons of biomass annually with more than 750 kW of electrical generation capacity.
Methane is a versatile source of clean power. It can be used to generate electricity and thermal heat; it can also be cleaned, separated, and dried to produce natural gas; or it can be compressed to fuel automobiles (as compressed natural gas, or CNG).
Other collaborators in the Third Frontier grant include Ohio State's Ohio Bio- Products Innovation Center (OBIC), Rockwell Automation, Seaman Corporation, seepex, and McCabe Engineering.
More information can be found at http://quasarenergygroup.com and ht tp://www.oardc.ohio-state.edu/ bioenergy.
--By Mauricio Espinoza
Secrest Arboretum Takes New Ecosystem Approach
The idea being to fight nature less -- and understand it more
The planting beds in Secrest Arboretum are full of last fall's leaves. And that's how Ken Cochran, the facility's program director, wants it.
Cochran is taking a new approach to managing the place, one that trades overzealous tidiness for a deeper understanding of the complex life there.
"We're not trying to completely control this environment," he said. "And we're not just letting it go. We're trying to create more of an ecosystem in the arboretum-- not an all-natural one, but a naturalistic one--to see how it functions."
Those leaves, he said, will decompose soon. In the process, they'll enrich the soil, feed plants, and grow a vast network of beneficial microbes and insects. It's how a proper forest works.
The new philosophy shows in new features: the Ohio Native Plant Garden, which draws native pollinating insects; Skip and Letty's Water Garden, home to not just fish and frogs but dragonflies over it and birds that come drink there; and the John Streeter Garden Amphitheater, a special spot for what might be the arboretum's biggest component besides plants.
"The Garden Amphitheater adds a huge human element," Cochran said. Hundreds attend weddings, recitals, and summertime science shows there. They sit on rock, not plastic, seating, with the sky overhead and with trees all around: a setting created on purpose. "We want people to have a relationship with the natural world while they're there," he said.
A proposed new visitor center, still in planning, should strengthen that tie even further.
For Cochran, it all comes down to connections: among plants, birds, bees, deer, slugs, fungi, and you, to name just a few. Plus soils, heat, drought, cold, rain, snow, wind, and sun.
"It's such a diverse environment," he said. "We want to respect the interrelationships. We want to understand them better."
About Secrest Arboretum
Part of the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC) in Wooster, Secrest Arboretum spans 115 acres and houses some 3,000 plant types. The arboretum is named for Edmund Secrest, a forester and former director of the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station (now OARDC), who made the first plantings in 1908.
1680 Madison Ave. Wooster, OH
Free admission
--By Kurt Knebusch
