Rice straw to Biogas (R2B) Project

大米是世界头号粮食作物，但其茎和叶(稻草)在发展中国家是一种主要的废物产品，特别是在亚洲，每年约有3亿吨稻草被焚烧处理，损害环境和人类健康。它通常是一种劣质的牲畜饲料，不适合放回被淹的稻田，这会导致排放甲烷--一种强大的温室气体。先前的研究表明，利用厌氧消化可以将秸秆制成清洁燃烧的烹饪燃料(沼气)，但有许多技术和非技术障碍需要克服，例如从田间将秸秆经济地运往枢纽，以及克服将其加工成燃料的挑战。该项目汇集了各自领域的两家创新企业和领先的学者，在英国的大量实验室工作和分析的支持下，在菲律宾建立了一个现场试验。其目的是开发一种实用的解决方案，可以为偏远的稻农社区带来利润，他们是世界上30亿人中的一员，他们缺乏清洁的烹饪燃料，但被这种巨大的、未得到充分利用的生物能源所包围。

Rice is the world's number one food crop, but its stems and leaves (straw) are a major waste product in developing countries, especially in Asia where around 300 million tonnes of it are burned each year for disposal, damaging the environment and human health. It is generally a poor quality feed for livestock and is not suitable for incorporating back into flooded rice fields, which would result in emissions of methane - a powerful greenhouse gas. Prior research has shown that it can be made into a clean-burning cooking fuel (biogas) using anaerobic digestion, but there are many technical and non-technical barriers to be overcome, such as getting the straw from the field to a hub economically and overcoming challenges in processing it into fuel. This project brings together two innovative businesses and leading academics in their field to set up a field trial in the Philippines, backed up by significant lab work and analysis in the UK. The aim is to develop a practical solution that could profitably serve remote communities of rice farmers, who are among the 3 billion people worldwide who lack clean cooking fuel but are surrounded by this vast, underused bioenergy resource.