Sockwell Hall

Bioprocessing and Fermentation Laboratory

Room 137, Sockwell Hall

Capabilities and instrumentation

• Agricultural and environmental engineering
• Fermentation and testing using bench-top fermentors
• Designing and testing pilot-scale fermentation systems
• Anaerobic digestion and testing using bench-top digesters
• Designing and testing pilot-scale digestion systems
• Value-added product development
• Waste utilization
• Cell culturing and bacterial counting to determine cell viability
• Chemical analysis by liquid chromatography
• Chemical analysis by electrochemical methods (YSI Industrial analyzer)
• Landfill gas analysis by GEM-500
• Product separation by ion exchange and membrane separation
• Designing and testing bioreactors
• Designing and testing photovoltaic electric generation systems
• Determining physical, chemical and thermal characteristics of solid biofuels
• Development of web-based instructional materials for distance education

Research

• Production of value-added products from cheese whey, including polymers and antimicrobial compounds
• Production of methane fuel from animal wastes
• Production of hydrogen fuel by microbial fermentation
• Development of an automated egg packaging system
• Assessing renewable energy potential of wood waste and agricultural residues in North Carolina
• Determining the technical performance and economic feasibility of thin-film photovoltaic modules in a residential environment
• Demonstrating the reliability and the performance of a 25-kW Sterling engine and a 5-kW proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell