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This study analyzed the perceptions of Kentucky Homebased Processors and Microprocessors of the benefits of and barriers to developing and selling value-added products. The final sample consisted of 141 participants, 60.5% (n=72) of which were from Central KY, 26.9% (n=32) were from Western KY, and 12.6% (n=15) were from Eastern KY. Overall, participants seemed to feel that their value-added products were successful in many different benefit categories. The primary barriers to developing value-added products were lack of time, lack of funding, and lack of legal knowledge. The primary barriers to utilizing program resources for farmers were not having enough time, being unaware of the services offered, and programs being too far away. The information found by this study can be used to determine the addressable needs in different regions of Kentucky and assist programs in making their services more available and applicable to Kentucky farm entrepreneurs.

The aim of this study was to examine how manure-derived value-added products via anaerobic digestion impact the environment and economics of dairy farming. An on-farm anaerobic digester (AD) at Virginia dairy was used in this study. The AD performance evaluated for: (i) biogas production (ii) waste stabilization; and (iii) production of organic fertilizer. Locally available organic waste streams were evaluated for co-digestion with dairy manure to increase biomethane production at the on-farm AD. The effective pasteurization temperature and duration to reduce fecal coliform, E. coli, and Salmonella concentrations in the AD effluent to acceptable levels for use as an organic fertilizer were determined. A partial environmental and economic analysis was conducted on the AD system to determine its effects on the environmental-economic sustainability of dairy farming. The results showed that the manure-derived value-added products from the AD improved environmental health and had the potential to improve the economic sustainability of the dairy farm. The AD stabilized the manure adequately and produced 400 KW of electricity, enough to power 230 US homes. Blending manure with locally available organic materials increased volatile fatty acid production, suggesting the potential to increase biomethane yields. Pasteurization at 70°C is sufficient to reduce pathogen indicating organisms to acceptable levels for the manure to be used as an organic fertilizer. The payback periods range from 4.6 to 11.8 years for the AD investment costs and reductions in direct manure methane emissions of 2,436 tonnes CO2e per year. / Master of Science

The prevalence of antibiotics on farms for therapeutic and prophylactic use in animals can cause negative effects on biomethane production during anaerobic digestion. Previous literature has found decreased biomethane production rates from a variety of antibiotics, but biogas inhibition differs between studies of continuous and batch reactors and the type of antibiotic studied. Cephalosporin drugs are the most common antibiotic class used to treat mastitis in dairy cows and can retain most of their bioactivity after excretion. Ceftiofur is a commonly used cephalosporin drug but no previous study investigating the effect of Ceftiofur on biomethane during continuous anaerobic digestion has been performed. The aim of this study was to examine the effect on biomethane production when manure from cows treated with Ceftiofur was anaerobically digested. Laboratory sized anaerobic digesters (AD) were run at thermophilic (55°C) temperatures and a 10 day hydraulic retention time. Manure from cows treated with Ceftiofur were fed to the antibiotic treatment reactors for 50 days. The reactor performance was measured by i) biomethane production, ii) waste stabilization in terms of solids and chemical oxygen demand, iii) change in mass of Ceftiofur and iv) change in concentration of antibiotic resistant genes, specifically cfx(A), mef(A), and tet(Q). There was statistically significant decrease in cumulative gas production due to the addition of Ceftiofur into the reactors, but no significant difference between treatments in waste stabilization in terms of percent volatile solids (VS) and total chemical oxygen demand (TCOD) reduction. Anaerobic digestion decreased the amount of Ceftiofur in manure, and the amount of Ceftiofur in the reactors reduced over the time of the experiment. Change in antibiotic resistant genes (ARGs) were gene dependent over time. Concentrations of tet(Q) reduced significantly between feed and effluent of both treatments, and cfx(A) reduced significantly for the control treatment but not the Ceftiofur treatment. Concentrations of mef(A) increased over time in both treatments. Overall, the addition of Ceftiofur in continuously operated anaerobic digesters negatively affected biomethane production, a value-added product responsible for on-farm renewable energy. However, anaerobic digestion does decrease the mass of Ceftiofur within manure, thereby reducing the environmental loading from run-off from farms. / Master of Science / Anaerobic digestion is a biological treatment technology used on farms to treat manure. It can be used to reduce potential environmental damage from contaminants and manure, homogenize manure for fertilizer, and produce methane gas for renewable energy. An emerging challenge in manure management is the presence of antibiotics such as ceftiofur used in animal production to prevent and treat illnesses. When antibiotics are used on livestock, they are excreted from the animal in manure. When the manure is added to the digester, the antibiotic molecules within the manure can kill the bacteria responsible for manure homogenization and gas production. Ceftiofur is a type of cephalosporin antibiotic used to treat dairy cows for mastitis, a bacterial infection of the udder. When the cows are treated with Ceftiofur, it can remain in the excreted manure and enter the digester. The use of antibiotics on farms is also leading to a global phenomenon known as antibiotic resistance. The bacteria that are exposed to antibiotics can develop mutations to become immune to the antibiotic, and can spread the mutations through antibiotic resistant genes (ARGs). ARGs can spread to bacteria which have never been exposed to antibiotics, making them resistant. This causes a significant concern in regards to disease treatment across the world as the efficacy of antibiotics is threatened. Understanding how ARGs move and how they can be eliminated is crucial to preventing global antibiotic resistance. The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of anaerobic digestion on Ceftiofur and ARGs. Four continuous lab-scale anaerobic digesters, two using control manure and two using manure from cows treated with Ceftiofur, were run at 55˚C for a period of 50 days. Over time, the reactor with manure from cows treated with the Ceftiofur antibiotic produced less gas as compared to the control digesters. The amount of Ceftiofur within the digesters decreased over time, demonstrating anaerobic digestion’s ability to degrade the antibiotic molecule. The effect of anaerobic digestion on the ARG concentration was gene specific. The concentration of the tet(Q) gene, a gene responsible for resistance against the very common antibiotic tetracycline, was reduced by anaerobic digestion. These results demonstrate that anaerobic digestion is a technology which can reduce the environmental impact of manure from Ceftiofur-treated cows. This shows that manure treatment can be a first step in combating antibiotic resistance across the globe.

Ces travaux de thèse portent sur la possibilité de combiner la catalyse hétérogène et la catalyse enzymatique dans une réaction en cascade de transformation de la cellulose en produits d’intérêt. Le prétraitement enzymatique (Celluclast, un cocktail de cellulases) a été choisi comme première étape de transformation de la cellulose en vue de la fragiliser; elle est réalisée dans une solution tampon d’acide acétique et d’acétate de sodium à pH 4,75, à 50°C. Cette étape produit principalement du glucose et modifie structurellement la cellulose résiduelle en diminuant seulement son degré de polymérisation (DP), fournissant de nouvelles extrémités réductrices sans toucher sa cristallinité. L’identification des verrous de la deuxième étape de catalyse hétérogène, réalisée en autoclave à une température supérieure ou égale à 190°C, a consisté à trouver un catalyseur hétérogène qui peut tolérer le milieu réactionnel enzymatique tamponné, qui peut avoir une activité catalytique favorisée sur les celluloses de DP inferieurs et qui peut valoriser le glucose obtenu dans des conditions identiques à la cellulose. Parmi les différentes familles de catalyseurs testés, le catalyseur métallique à base de Pt/charbon, s’est révélé plus efficace que les catalyseurs acides de Lewis et de Brønsted en raison de sa résistance au milieu tamponné et de sa capacité à convertir la cellulose et le glucose dans des conditions identiques malgré l’insensibilité de ce type de catalyseur de la diminution du DP de la cellulose prétraitée. Il a permis de convertir sélectivement la cellulose en propylène et éthylène glycols à 240°C dans une transformation cascade incluant une étape enzymatique suivie d’une étape catalytique hétérogène / This thesis deals with the possibility of combining heterogeneous catalysis and enzymatic catalysis in a cascade reaction for cellulose transformation into value-added products. The enzymatic pretreatment was chosen as the first cellulose transformation step to weaken the cellulose structure which is carried out in a buffer solution of acetic acid and sodium acetate at a pH 4.75, at 50°C. This step is selective, producing mainly glucose, and it has structurally modified the residual cellulose by only decreasing its degree of polymerization (DP) by providing new reducing ends without affecting its crystallinity. The challenges of the second step, heterogeneous catalysis, which is done in a closed autoclave at a temperature greater than or equal to 190°C, were then to find a heterogeneous catalyst that can tolerate the buffered enzyme reaction medium, that can have a favored activity on lower DP celluloses and that can valorize the obtained glucose and cellulose in identical conditions. Among the different families of catalysts tested, the metallic catalyst based on Pt/carbon was shown to be more efficient than the other Lewis and Brønsted acid catalysts due to its resistance to the buffer medium and its abilities to valorize glucose and cellulose in equivalent conditions despite the independence of this type of catalyst to the reduction of the DP of the pretreated cellulose. It allowed to selectively convert cellulose into propylene and ethylene glycols at 240°C in a cascade reaction including an enzymatic catalytic step and a heterogeneously catalyzed one

In the last decade there has been increasing research interest in the value of bio-sourced materials from lignocellulosic biomass. The dissolution of cellulose by ionic liquids (ILs) has led to investigations including the dissolution of cellulose, lignin, and complete biomass samples and the in situ processing of cellulose. Rapid quantitative measurement of cellulose dissolution in ILs is difficult. In this work, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) spectra of cellulose dissolved in 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium acetate ([emim][OAc]) were subjected to partial least squares (PLS) regression to model dissolved cellulose content. PLS regression was used due to the ease in developing predictive models with this technique in addition to linear regression being ineffectual for modeling when applied to potentially thousands of variables. Applying a normalization data treatment, before regression, generated a model that estimated cellulose content within 0.533 wt%. The methods described provided the basis for a rapid methodology to determine dissolved cellulose content. Development of rapid and facile screening techniques to determine the effectiveness of various ILs as solvents for cellulose or lignin will aid in the development of lignocellulosic based bioproducts. In this work, optical microscopy with and without the use of cross-polarized lenses, was used to monitor cellulose and lignin dissolution in two imidazolium-based and two phosphonium-based ILs as well as n,n-dimethylacetamide/lithium chloride (DMAc/LiCl), demonstrating that this technique could be applied more broadly than solely for ILs. The described optical microscopy methodology was more rapid and sensitive than more traditional techniques, such as visual inspection. The viscosity of [emim][OAc] (162 cP) is 100 times that of water at 20°C and could inhibit its use as a solvent for cellulose. There is a need for simple, low-cost and environmentally benign methods to reduce the viscosity of ILs to aid in cellulose dissolution. In this work, 4 wt% cellulose dissolved in [emim][OAc] was subjected to 50 psi CO2 and 20 psi N2, as a control environment, at both 50°C and 75°C. After 24 hours a nearly 2-fold increase in dissolved cellulose over the N2 control was demonstrated through the application of a 50 psi CO2 environment for cellulose dissolution in [emim][OAc] at 50°C. / Thesis (Master, Chemical Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2011-05-25 22:58:17.744