Advanced BioFuels USA

“Typha is a major problem in Africa,” says Kohn. “It grows very aggressively where there is over fertilization, blocking waterways and invading rice and other agricultural fields. Before this project, it was basically being chopped down and left on water banks to rot because it wasn’t seen as being worth anything. But we thought that if we could find ways to use it, people might actually want to go out and chop it themselves.”

With funding from the World Bank, Kohn and his collaborators across the Polytechnic University of Madrid, the Federal University of Gashua Nigeria, the National Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison Services Nigeria, and the Federal Ministry of Water Resources Nigeria examined this problem in the Hadejia Valley from an agricultural, environmental, socio-economic, and human health perspective to provide the most sustainable solutions possible. 

“There were multiple problems we were looking to address with Typha,” explains Kohn. “First, coming up with an alternative cooking fuel was a big focus. The people mostly cook with firewood, so they are contributing to deforestation in the area causing local climate changes and also burning wood in the home that causes a lot of health problems. An estimated 95 thousand people are dying a year from the smoke in this region. Second, livestock gets very thin in the dry season due to lack of available feed, causing loss in productivity. It also leads to a lot of conflict between herders and crop farmers because livestock end up eating the crops other farmers are trying to grow. We thought maybe we could help solve both of these problems and make the Typha useful.”

Getting to the point where the Typha was usable as biogas and animal feed didn’t come without challenges. According to Kohn’s team, the drying process was particularly difficult since the plant is 80% to 90% water. If you cut it and let it dry like hay, it essentially rots before it is usable. The team found, however, that if you cut it longitudinally, it dries fairly quickly and can then be put to use. The team then analyzed different stages of Typha maturity to see when in the plant’s lifespan it is best cut and used for biogas or animal feed. They found that particularly the immature Typha is quite useful for animal feed and can improve animal performance, while it can be used to produce biogas at immature and mature stages of life. Overall, however, Typha proved to be a viable source of both feed and biogas for the region.  READ MORE

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To learn more about this work, watch the researchers give a talk as a part of the College of Agriculture & Natural Resources International Agriculture Speaker Series. The recording of the lecture is available here.   READ MORE