I-Corps: Team HexaFeast National

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The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to create an integrated food-energy-water system that uses agricultural waste to generate a high-protein food product. Large-scale use of agricultural waste (mostly leafy greens) as a food source for mealworms, which are a dry-goods pests and do not survive on wet foods. This project will develop a passive solar dryer to dry agricultural waste on a large scale with very little energy input and high efficiency so that it can be set up any where in the world near agricultural fields. This system for producing protein for human consumption is designed to have a water-use footprint close to zero. This I-Corps project will develop the large-scale use of agricultural waste (mostly leafy greens) as a food source for mealworms. Second, mealworms are dry-goods pests and do not survive on wet foods. This project will develop a passive solar dryer to dry agricultural waste on a large scale with very little energy input. It is the company's intent to develop the dryer with minimal moving parts and high efficiency so that it can be set up any where in the world near agricultural fields. Third, this system for producing protein for human consumption is designed to have a water-use footprint close to zero. Mealworms growth performance increases dramatically at high relative humidity. The passive solar dryer will dehydrate the agricultural waste to a dryness appropriate for the mealworms. The water released during desiccation will be recaptured and reused to humidify the mealworm rearing facility. Together, the intellectual merit lies in an integrated system to produce a high quality food source with minimal energy and water need, that can be set up relatively inexpensively anywhere in the world.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.