Biofuels from brewery waste

Scientists at Cornell University (USA) have discovered hundreds of beneficial bacteria from brewery waste. Some of them can produce methane, a gas that burns efficiently.

Many people who open cold beer may not pay attention to the remaining water after the beer bottle has been brewed. But for researchers at Cornell University, acidity is a good environment for turning waste into biofuels.

Will waste of breweries be a biofuel source?(Illustration).

Dr. Laurgus T. Angenent of Cornell University, together with environmental and biological research professors, discovered the types of bacteria in breweries that produce methane efficiently from waste.

They hope that this new discovery could develop bacteria that can produce biofuels and other useful products.

Scientists have gathered a lot of literature on how to make Budweiser and create nine types of bacteria in the brewery's waste. And they have to regularly take wastewater samples from brewing facilities for more than a year. They then used gene analysis software to analyze more than 400,000 gene sequences from bacteria.

Among thousands of bacteria, researchers have found 145 useful types. Of the nine breweries, one has a single beneficial bacterium.

The interesting thing that scientists have found is that we can see thousands of these bacteria with our own eyes.

In particular, in waste bins, these bacteria will work together and one of them will produce methane, so that we can save millions of dollars each year.

This work is supported by the Ministry of Agriculture, the Department of Energy and the US National Institutes of Health