Rice straw to Biogas (R2B) Project

水稻是世界头号粮食作物，但其茎叶（秸秆）是发展中国家的主要废物，特别是在亚洲，每年约有3亿吨水稻被焚烧处理，破坏了环境和人类健康。它通常是一种质量较差的牲畜饲料，也不适合重新投入被水淹没的稻田，这将导致甲烷的排放——一种强大的温室气体。先前的研究表明，它可以通过厌氧消化制成一种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，例如将秸秆从田地经济地运送到一个中心，并克服将其加工成燃料的挑战。该项目汇集了两家创新企业和各自领域的领先学者，在菲律宾进行实地试验，并得到英国重要实验室工作和分析的支持。其目的是开发一种切实可行的解决方案，为偏远的稻农社区提供有益的服务。全世界有30亿人缺乏清洁的烹饪燃料，但却被这种巨大的、未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.