PERMETIA ENVIROTECH, INC.

submitted to 

USING BLACK SOLDIER FLIES AS A TOOL FOR RURAL AND COMMUNITY

DEVELOPMENT
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
TERMINATED
Funding Source
SMALL BUSINESS GRANT
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1006293
Grant No.
2015-33610-23520
Project No.
OREW-2015-00788
Proposal No.
2015-00788
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Program Code
8.6
Project Start Date
Jun 1, 2015
Project End Date
Jan 31, 2016
Grant Year
2015

Project Director
PEREDNIA, D.
Recipient Organization
PERMETIA ENVIROTECH, INC.
4637 SW FAIRHAVEN DR
PORTLAND,OR 97221

Performing Department
(N/A)

Non Technical Summary

This Permetia Envirotech, Inc. research and development initiative is meant to help
address four important problems. The first is the need for economic opportunity, growth
and development in rural communities that has been well documented by USDA. The
second is the problem of disposing of millions of tons of food waste and manure
generated in both rural and urban settings each year - waste that often buried in landfills
or composted, generating large amounts of greenhouse gasses in the process. Each year
the United States throws away roughly 61 million tons of food. Of this amount, 21 million
tons is composted or diverted to productive use, while nearly 40 million tons is buried in
landfills at tremendous expense. The third problem is that of how to supply large
amounts of additional high-quality animal protein to the world's population.
Demand for food is expected to double by 2050. The UN Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) estimates that this will require producing an additional 233 million
metric tonnes (MMT) of animal protein and 466 MMT of milk annually. The fourth is
global climate change. According to The New York Times, about one-third of the food
produced in the world is never consumed; a total of about 1.3 billion tons per year. Its
decay creates 3.3 billion tons of greenhouse gasses (GHGs). If food waste were a
country, it would be the third largest emitter of GHGs in the world, after China and the
United States. This is because virtually all conventional methods of disposing of organic
waste generate huge quantities of greenhouse gasses. Each ton disposed of in landfills
produces 0.75 metric ton CO2 equivalent (MTCO2E), while each ton incinerated produces
0.68 MTCO2E. Composting is considered to be "greener", but still produces 0.55
MTCO2E, while 0.5% of the nitrogen present emits as nitrous oxide and 1.7% of the
carbon present emits as methane.One means of alleviating all these problems
simultaneously is to use abundant food and farm waste to grow commercial quantities of
edible insects - particularly the Black Soldier Fly (Hermetia illucens) (BSF) - a native,
non-nuisance, beneficial species. BSF larvae efficiently convert organic waste into animal
protein, oil and chitin, and organic fertilizer, all of which have industrial uses. In the
process they actually sequester much of the carbon present in food waste as complex
oils and proteins rather than releasing it into the air as methane or CO2. BSF have been
successfully raised in limited commercial quantities both in the U.S. and internationally,
and studies have shown that BSF larvae can be successfully used as an ingredient in
both aquaculture and terrestrial animal feed. However challenges to the mass-scale
production and utilization of BSF for the disposal of organic waste remain. Three
problems in particular stand out: (1) reducing the physical "footprint" of BSF growth
facilities; (2) reducing the amount of labor required for BSF culture through automation;
and (3) creating end-products of sufficiently high value to make the process of bio-
conversion financially viable.Permetia has developed a new, unique patent-pending BSF
feeder bin that, if successful, could substantially increase the yield/m2 of BSF culture
and production facilities and reduce both overhead and labor costs. This would
substantially improve the economics and feasibility of converting food and/or manure
waste to usable food and industrial commodities, while reducing the use of landfills and
production of greenhouse gasses. The goal of this Phase I research is to obtain specific
experimental data that will allow us to: (1) demonstrate the technical feasibility of the
bin configuration proposed; (2) measure its efficiency and effectiveness as a means of
promoting gas exchange within the food pile; (3) establish key operating parameters
needed to move to the next (Phase II) step of learning how to build and manage a
production system; and (4) test configurations that would allow for the automation or
semi-automation of critical functions such as feeding, monitoring and harvesting.Based
upon all available data we have every reason to believe that this effort will be successful.
A positive outcome in all three phases of the SBIR effort will allow us to commercialize
the technology by helping farmers and rural communities build and operate profitable
BSF culture facilities of all sizes. These "BSF farms" will take food and other organic
waste from both urban and rural areas and use it to grow industrial quantities of BSF
larvae. These larvae can be profitably used in a wide variety of ways, including being:
(1) fed directly to fish or livestock on the farm; (2) sold to others for processing into
protein, oil and chitin products; and (3) being processed directly into additional value-
added products in rural communities.
Animal Health Component

100%

Research Effort Categories

Basic
30%
Applied
30%
Developmental
40%

Classification
 Knowledge Area (KA) Subject of Investigation (SOI) Field

307 3110

Knowledge Area
307 - Animal Management Systems;

Subject Of Investigation
3110 - Insects;

Field Of Science
1060 - Biology (whole systems);
Keywords
food
black soldier fly
community
development
edible
insects
manure
oil
protein
rural
waste
Goals / Objectives
The goal of this Phase I research is to obtain specific experimental data that will allow us
to: (1) demonstrate the technical feasibility of the bin configuration proposed; (2)
measure its efficiency and effectiveness as a means of promoting gas exchange within
the food pile; (3) establish key operating parameters needed to move to the next (Phase
II) step of learning how to build and manage a production system; and (4) test
configurations that would allow for the automation or semi-automation of critical
functions such as feeding, monitoring and harvesting.
Project Methods
The methods to be employed in this research are straightforward. We shall build a
prototype BSF feeder device of the type proposed and examine its performance while
varying a variety of operating parameters. The data to be collected will include
measurements of gas exchange, larval distribution within the food pile, larval behavior,
harvesting success, and observations regarding technical aspects of the prototype design
and operation.
Progress 06/01/15 to 01/31/16

Outputs
Target Audience:Target audiences include the following: - Rural communities and farmers looking for
feeding operations (such as dairies, poultry, and hog farms) interested in manure reduction and nutri
environmentally friendly and sustainable ways of disposing of food waste and manure - Government a
greenhouse gases, agricultural run-off, and bacterial counts - Manufacturers and supplies of feed for p
of organic fertilizers Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and profess
results been disseminated to communities of interest?Part of the results of this research were include
preparing a paper regarding the remarkable differential between the greenhouse gas emissions of con
plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? BSF larvae do not live deeper than about 7cm within a foo
so. Feed slurries of the type that would be used to process manure and ground up food waste rapidly
larvae. These portions of the pile become effectively anaerobic within 10-20 minutes. The depletion o
the additional oxygen demands caused by respiration. Even when a concentration of larvae as small a
it otherwise would: roughly 5-7 minutes. Unless oxygen levels can be restored by use of technical me
depth, and thus within relatively confined spaces such as farm buildings in temperate climates. The b
food pile, but seems to reach a practical limit at a depth of about 25-50mm (1-2 inches). The presenc
substantially enhance the ability of BSF larvae to burrow and move through the feed pile, and may pa
The addition of a rigid or semi-rigid matrix material to the feed pile is a completely new and unexpect
material to suspend feed within the pile, preserve air spaces, and provide an easy avenue for larval m
sustained at approximately 100 hPa - from roughly 75mm (3 inches) to 152mm (6 inches) - even wit
implemented in BSF feeding operations immediately, and promises to at least double feeding product
combined with other measures such as mixing, turning, or pumping air through the feed pile. The pre
rapidly within the pile at depths greater than about 6 inches when a substantial concentration of BSF
medium in an attempt to replaced oxygen that is used through respiration, the need to replenish both
process such as rotation of the matrix substrate will still be necessary even if a bubbling system is us
case, crawling). Migration experiments appear to support our hypothesis that larval distributions with
present. Small concentrations of larvae feeding in a matrix material such as hazelnut shells simply do
demand does not overwhelm the oxygen available. If this oxygen can be replenished on a regular bas
larvae from becoming too high, there is no reason to believe that BSF feed piles cannot be made as d
may have a huge practical impact on future commercial operations. First and foremost, mixing a loose
not appear to have any adverse impact on larval health or their ability to feed, grow, or move. In som
validates active mixing as a potential means of aerating deep BSF feed piles; thereby allowing comme
general, and mixing by rotation in particular, is an effective means of increasing the level of oxygen d
rate and/or efficiency of mixing can be increased. Our bin's feed pile during this part of the rese
grow an equivalent number of larvae in a conventional feeder bin (maximum feeding depth of about 7
ft. x 6.11 feet). From a surface area perspective, this method of cultivation is 6.3x more efficient than
more effective - probably at least 10x more efficient. This has profound implications for large-scale BS
manure. Based upon what we've learned from this design, there is considerable room for impro
possible to minimize or eliminate any areas of reduced mixing such as the central "vortex" encountere
molded into the desired shape if made of plastic, or welded if made of metal. Any joints must be com
that does not offer an obvious junction to exploit. It seems likely that the tendency to seek out narrow
traditional ramps be attached to an otherwise enclosed system. This has implications for the design o
farming operation will require access to one or more facilities that are dedicated to mating, egg laying
To our knowledge, this is the first time that any attempt has been made to quantify the comparative
work to publish these results in the scientific literature. BSF-mediated composting results in substanti
microbial composting or burying organic materials (manure and food waste) in landfills. If we assume
estimate the differential effect on GHG production that would occur if food waste were consumed by B
tonnes of food waste the use of BSF would result in emitting 62.6 fewer tons of carbon dioxide being
using conventional microbes. If one were to take just the un-recycled food waste produced by the U.S
into the atmosphere each year. That's all of the CO2 produced by 140,628 average Americans;
GHG output of Fiji. (While this is a relatively small amount compared with the CO2 produced by fossil
impact. Worldwide, approximately 1.6 billion tons of food waste is produced each year.) These calcula
produced by American agriculture each year. Over 335 million tons of farm animal manure "dry matte
tons of un-recycled food waste. This is over 26 times more manure than food waste by weight. Virtua

Publications

 Type: Journal Articles Status: Other Year Published: 2016 Citation: Non