Researchers transform brewery waste water into energy storage cells read more at here www.spinonews.com/index.php/item/1199-researchers-transform-brewery-waste-water-into-energy-storage-cells

Scientists in Colorado have found a way to make brewers and battery makers allies in the quest for energy efficiency.

Brewing beer is a water-intensive process. For every barrel of beer, brewers use roughly seven barrels of water.

Tyler Huggins, a graduate student at the University of Colorado, said, Breweries use about seven barrels of water for every barrel of beer produced, and they can't just dump it into the sewer because it requires extra filtration.

Brewery waste water is an ideal place to grow the biomass-producing fungi. Innovative battery makers have found a variety of ways to convert biological materials into carbon-based electrodes used for energy storage, but finding efficient sources of biomass hasn't been easy.

Many fungi naturally incorporate metals and minerals into unique composite materials with electrochemical properties. Scientists found they could better control the growth conditions and resulting electrochemical properties when Neurospora crassa was cultivated in brewery waste water.

Huggins said, the waste water is ideal for our fungus to flourish in, so we are happy to take it. The result was one of the most efficient naturally derived Li ion battery electrodes ever produced. The fungus-growing process also naturally cleans the waste water.

Zhiyong Jason Ren, an associate professor in CU Boulder's department of civil, environmental and architectural engineering added, the novelty of our process is changing the manufacturing process from top-down to bottom-up. We're designing the bio materials right from the start.

Huggins said, we see a large potential for scaling because there’s nothing required in this process that isn’t already available.