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.
