Location: Food Science and Market Quality and Handling Research Unit
Project Number: 6070-30600-002-004-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Mar 1, 2026
End Date: Jun 30, 2027
Objective:
Develop new uses for peanut byproducts to add value to such crop and benefit growers and processors. As peanut shells contain high levels of lignin, they will produce biochar products that can serve a range of uses for increasing the quality of soils, air and water, while reducing a source of agricultural waste material. The biochar can be used to produce biographite for further processing into anodes for Lithium batteries.
Approach:
Using a process previously developed for soft wood material, the dry biomaterial will be mixed with an iron powder catalyst (30 wt%) prior to graphitization in a tube furnace under nitrogen (1 L min-1). Several heating protocols will be evaluated for optimum production of biographite from peanut shells. The “baseline” heating ramp will be: furnace on, 25–600 °C at 3 °C min-1, 600–1200 °C at 10 °C min-1, furnace off, natural cool down. The “fast” heat ramp will be: furnace on, 25–1200 °C at 10 °C min-1, furnace off, natural cool down. The “hold” heat ramp will be: furnace on, 25–600 °C at 3 °C min-1, 600–1200 °C at 10 °C min-1, hold at 1200 °C for 60 min, furnace off, natural cool down. The iron catalyst will then be removed from the biographite via reaction with hydrochloric acid. A reflux will be carried out in excess by lightly boiling a 5% by weight loading of biographite plus iron in concentrated hydrochloric acid (37%) for 3 hours. The purified graphite will be separated via filtration and dried. The purified graphite will be evaluated in battery anode applications. Techno-economic modeling will be conducted with the aid of bioprocess simulations to quantify the minimum selling price of each bioproduct for comparison against current market prices.