00:00 Track
along confectionery aisle in supermarket (Master Foods
B-roll)
c.u.
chocolate running off a chocolate fountain (Research-TV
archive)
Shopper
collection chocolate bar from shelf (Master Foods B-roll)
Car
arriving at hydrogen fuel station (Shell B-roll)
Fuel
Cell driven car on the road (Shell B-roll )
c.u.
water from car exhaust
Wide
– exterior Bioscience building, University of
Birmingham
c.u.
Biosciences sign
c.u.
Confectionery waste in beaker
Hands
stirring waste
c.u
confectionery waste on spatula
Guide Voice: Most of us have a sweet tooth
– we like our sweets and chocolate bars, sometimes a little
too much! Now it seems that our weakness for sweet foods could help
to provide a source of renewable energy for the future.
Hydrogen is one of the cleanest fuels available. Used to power a
fuel cell, the only by-product is water, as shown by this
hydrogen-powered car.
Now scientists at the School of Biosciences at the University of
Birmingham, in the UK, have found a way to extract hydrogen from
confectionery waste – a process that could have a major
impact on the future handling of food waste and its contribution to
the supply of renewable energy.
00:37 SOT: Professor Lynne Macaskie, School of
Biosciences, University of Birmingham - "The idea
behind the project is that looking towards the looming energy
crisis and the fact that hydrogen technology is likely to become
increasingly important over the next ten, twenty years. We realised
that it’s possible to make hydrogen using microbes and a
possible source of nutrient for the microbes is actually a lot of
the waste that’s being thrown away at the moment or diverted
into animal feed. So the idea was to see if we could tap into some
of this waste and see if we could convert that into hydrogen and
then make energy from that."
01:11 Wide
– experiment equipment on laboratory bench
Tilt
down, fermenter
Focus
pull, temperature dial to top of fermenter
c.u.
solution in fermenter
c.u.
Hydrogen bubbling up through water
Extreme
c.u. of above
Guide Voice: The project uses E. coli
bacteria, identified by the researchers as having the right
sugar-consuming, hydrogen-generating properties. The bacteria are
placed in a fermenter along with the caramel-like waste product and
a gas such as nitrogen.Under these conditions, the E. coli
ferments the sugars, generating a range of organic acids. This
causes the acidity in the fermenter to rise, creating a more toxic
environment for the bacteria. To alleviate this toxicity they
convert formic acid to hydrogen and carbon dioxide.
01:41 SOT: Dr David Penfold,
School of
Biosciences, University
of Birmingham –
“To start off with we streak the bacteria on a plate and
this is inoculated over night in a nutrient broth which allows the
bacteria to grow to a high density. The next day the bacteria are
put into the fermenter along with some saline and the confectionery
waste, this is then gassed with nitrogen to make it anaerobic, for
about an hour, and then it’s connected up to the fuel cell
and the evolved hydrogen is converted into
electricity.”
02:07 c.u
Fan being driven from fuel cell
Wider
of above
Wide
of researcher streaking petrie dish
Wide
of Professor Macaskie, Dr Penfold and Wolfgang Skibar
Guide Voice: The hydrogen generates clean
electricity via a fuel cell. So far this is only a laboratory-based
research project, but C-Tech Innovation Ltd, one of the partners in
the project have conducted an economic assessment which suggests
that the process can work on a much larger scale.
02:24 SOT: Wolfgang Skibar,
Project Manager, C-Tech Innovation Ltd., –
“C-Tech innovation is running a UK
government-funded organisation called The Resource Efficiency
Knowledge Transfer Networks, and this is a network of industry and
academia to make processes more efficient and we see this process
to be used within this network so we can attract customers
within this network and we also have support from the National
Industrial Symbiosis programme which is another UK government
funded organisation which brings producers of waste streams
together with users of these waste streams to make something useful
out of that."
03:04 Wide
– Confectionery Factory (Master Foods B-roll)
c.u.
Chocolate Bars on conveyor (Master Foods B-roll)
wide
– Van fuelling at Hydrogen pump (Shell B-roll)
c.u.
hydrogen fuelling vehicle (Shell B-roll)
Wide
of above (Shell B-roll)
c.u.
nozzle placed in fuel intake (Shell B-roll)
Guide Voice: It’s easy to see the
potential. Food factories such as this one could use their own
product waste to generate energy for the manufacturing process;
they might even be able to fuel their own vehicles from the
hydrogen generated in this way. And it’s a technology that
could be adapted for use with most forms of food waste, making it
internationally applicable.
03:25 SOT: Dr. Penfold - "I think
the process has applications outside the UK because it works on
sugar so it’s not confined to confectionery waste. So, for
example, in Brazil where they have a high sugar cane output then it
could be run off by-product from that; as long as it contains the
sugar that the E. coli could use then it can be used
anywhere."
03:48 SOT: Professor Macaskie -
"Ultimately we hope to make an impact on supplying energy
for a large proportion of the country’s needs but in the
shorter term it would be very nice to show that it’s possible
for units – that is houses or factories – to become
largely independent of the grid and to be able to top up on
electricity from their own supply which will have the effect of
reducing the consumption of fossil fuels by less centralised
generation of electricity by burning fossil fuels."
04:17 Wide
– people dipping marshmallows into chocolate fountain
(Research-TV archive)
c.u.
of above (Research-TV archive)
Guide Voice: At last – a chance to feel
good about our guilty pleasures. Eat chocolate and help save the
planet!
04:24 End
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