Supporting Nigerian farmers by transforming food waste into valuable material
Academics from Teesside University are collaborating with counterparts in Nigeria on a groundbreaking project to turn food waste into a valuable material used to restore the environment and remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
The University is teaming up the University of Ibadan and Niji group, a Nigerian agricultural company, to deliver an African Agricultural Knowledge Transfer Partnership (AA KTP) project, looking at how waste from the cassava plant can be used to produce biochar.
Biochar is a charcoal-like product which has multiple useful properties including removing contamination from water and soil, enriching soil and sequestering carbon.
Cassava is a staple ingredient in a lot of African cuisine due, in part, to its cost-effectiveness and nutritional value.
Nigeria is the world’s largest producer of cassava, growing approximately 59.5 million tonnes of the crop each year.
Removing the husks and fibres of the cassava root in order to make it fit for consumption generates waste which would ordinarily go to landfill.
This, in turn, results in significant CO2 emissions, increased transportation, fuel and labour costs and the potential for environmental pollution.
This project will help the Niji group, which holds the largest cassava farms in west Africa, to generate a new revenue stream by valorising their waste to develop biochar.
The biochar is produced by heating the cassava waste in the absence of oxygen in a process known as a pyrolysis. The biochar quantity and quality depends on the process conditions and equipment.
The project will work with the Nigerian partners to analyse the produced biochar to study its quality and value.
This new product will enable soil enhancement and water treatment while sequestering carbon for centuries and significantly reduce Niji Group’s environmental impact.
In addition, it will facilitate the creation of new jobs to operate the pyrolysis units and prepare, package and transport the produced biochar.
This project will help to turn what was a useless by-product into a valuable material with the potential to restore depleted farmlands and sequester carbon dioxide.
It will also free valuable agricultural land that might otherwise have been used as a dumping area for the cassava waste.
Dr Tannaz Pak, an Associate Professor in Energy and Environmental Engineering, leads the Teesside University team which also consists of Professor Vida Zohoori, Dr Tariq Ahmed, Dr Vahid Ghorbani Padhakolai and project manager Claire Adams.
She said: “Teesside University is committed to impactful research which tackles global socio-economic and environmental challenges.
“This project will help to turn what was a useless by-product into a valuable material with the potential to restore depleted farmlands and sequester carbon dioxide.
“In doing so it will be helping to shape a cleaner, greener future while transforming the lives of individuals and communities in Nigeria.”
This Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) competition is part of the African agriculture strand of KTP. Innovate UK is investing up to £2.5 million towards the funding of projects in this strand.
This project is built on the knowledge gained through several other externally-funded projects Dr Pak has led funded including the AMIGO-Biochar project, the CharNival project and the MAGIC project funded by the British Council, the UKRI, and the British Academy respectively.