The Sustainable Technology Optimization Research Center (STORC) is a research facility located on the California State University Sacramento campus. There are several players included in operations at the STORC including Sacramento State's Risk Management, the College of Engineering and Computer Science (ECS), and two professors in the Environmental Studies department Brook Murphy and Dudley Burton. The STORC facility is primarily maintained by California State University, Sacramento student interns and volunteers who use applied science and technology to address real world policy, food, health, and energy issues of present-day society. Research at the STORC encompasses engineering and science to test and evaluate new ideas and approaches of sustainable technology to solve environmental problems. Faculty and students address sustainability with an interdisciplinary studies approach. The STORC Vision is to become "an international resource for practical, scalable, and financially viable solutions in the area of sustainable technologies that are suitable for private and/or public sector operations related to the management of energy, food, water, and waste". The STORC Mission is "to demonstrate the operation of innovative commercially viable physical systems that are underpinned by sustainable technologies, and to disseminate the associated plans, public policy discourse, and scientific findings".
Project purposes
Projects at the Sustainable Technology Optimization Research Center are developed as a closed-loop production system. Organic waste acquired from campus eateries is purposefully diverted from landfills where it is then incorporated and processed through several STORC projects turned into high quality protein used to feed fish and plants.
MTSS
STORC successfully operates an almost entirely closed-loop, Multi-Trophic Sustainable System that gathers food waste and introduces it into Compost and Vermicompost systems to produce high protein sources of food for a variety of fish. These fish then produce growth-limiting nutrients necessary for vegetable fertilization. These vegetables and other items are grown at STORC and consumed locally. Produce is also fertilized by use of Compost tea, a liquid solution of concentrated compost nutrients.
The food waste that enters this system is gathered exclusively from restaurants and cafes on the Sacramento State campus. The two main locations on campus that STORC receives their food donations from are Epicure, a restaurant and catering company that specialized in their fresh food, and the Campus Commons, the restaurant that produces fresh food for Sacramento State dormitory inhabitants, students, and guests. The food waste collected considered pre-consumer waste, which is a component of Pre-consumer recycling, where the waste is recycled and never reaches the consumer. Food waste collected from Epicure and the Campus Commons is collected in specialized bins in the kitchens, during food production, then set aside for collection by STORC.
Funding
As of 2016, the facility is funded by an EPA grant funding its sustainable closed-loop food production system. Waste diversion efforts at Sacramento State University are funded by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA). $15,000 was awarded to fund the aquaponic project at the STORC. Grant funds have been used to research sustainable food growing practices at the STORC while at the same time facilitating the production of vegetables that are distributed to several CSUS campus restaurants. STORC projects
Aquaponics STORC aquaponic's project focuses on the Urban Agriculture Method studying how to reduce water use and space needed to grow food in an urban setting. The goal of the aquaponic system at the facility is to gather detailed quantitative and operational parameters creating an example for other aquaponic systems to reference. Nutrient, reproductive, feeding, and environmental factors required by traditional aquaponic systems are addressed as well as pest and disease control strategies. The STORC is developing renewable systems to monitor operational controls such as water and air temperature, air circulation, and data collection. Other objectives of these systems include addressing problems in urban, industrial, and agriculture settings to ascertain knowledge needed to scale-up aquaponic systems that are both cost effective and efficient.
Biodiesel production system The Biodiesel production system (BPS) located at the STORC was initiated by a collaboration between Sacramento State's Risk Management Services (RMS) and the College of Engineering and Computer Science (ECS) to convert kitchen waste oil into biodiesel to power equipment used by Facilities Management to maintain Sacramento State's campus.
Studies suggest many benefits of biodiesel production compared to traditional petroleum diesel production.Biodiesel Benefits and Considerations Domestically produced biodiesel is suggested to be an energy secure renewable substitute that is cost effective when compared to petroleum based diesel with benefits including clean air emissions, and improved engine operations. Biodeisel can be produced in large quantities,Environmental, economic, and energetic costs and benefits of biodiesel and ethanol biofuels producing 4.5 units of energy per unit of fossil energy.Comparison of the performance and emissions of different biodiesel blends against petroleum diesel Biodeisel produced at the STORC is biodegradable, non-toxic, and highly oxygenated improving engine combustion efficiencies while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
At the Sustainable Technology Optimization Research Center trained students convert used vegetable oil from campus eateries into biodiesel that Facilities Management will then use to maintain campus grounds. Trained interns filter, titrate, process, and purify the kitchen waste oil into biodiesel where it can then be poured into a diesel fuel tank with no alteration to the engine.
Vermiculture Vermiculture at the STORC encompasses a seven steps program to convert campus food and landscape waste into high quality compost.Vermiculture, STORC Pre-consumer food waste and landscape collected on campus is broken down into smaller material allowing a faster decomposition rate as breaking down the material lessens surface area. Waste is combined into a pile and heated to 130-140 degrees Fahrenheit. The process takes five days allowing microbes to break down weed seeds and pathogens. The microbes begin to break the material down. After the first five days the pile is mixed and heated once again to 130-140 degrees Fahrenheit. The pathogens are now gone and the compost is ready to be utilized by the annelids in the system. The material is then added to the annelid bin where the material will be processes multiple times. The worms eat and reproduce, while this is happening material passes through the tract of the annelids and increases microbial content. When managed and harvested correctly the worm supply is sustainable. After the material passes several times through the annelids tract the material and annelids are separated. Annelids are added to a new compost pile or fed to fish in the aquaponics projects.
The Sustainable Technology Optimization Research Center currently fosters several insects such as Annelids, black soldier flies, and terrestrial Isopoda: Armadillidium vulgare, Porcellio laevis, Porcellio scaber.
Composting Composting is the process of taking organic solid waste, like food, paper and landscaping waste and allowing it to be broken down by microorganisms, creating a nutrient rich fertilizer to be used in food production or in landscaping. Once organic waste is placed in a pile, millions of microorganisms come from the soil to help break down the food waste. There are different types of microorganisms that are found in compost piles, depending on the temperature and pH of the compost pile, which can be determined by the types of waste introduced to the compost pile. In the beginning phase, mesophilic bacteria jump-start the decomposition process by breaking down all of the most easily decompostable material, raising the temperature to a level that the next phase of microorganisms thrive in. In the next phase of decomposition, thermophilic microorganisms further break down fats, proteins and complex carbohydrates. It is during this thermophilic phase that temperatures inside of a compost pile can reach above 60 °C, killing most human pathogens that may have been introduced. Once the maximum temperature has been reached, the thermophilic microorganisms tend to slow down and are replaced with more mesophilic bacteria, which continue organic breakdown. During these phases larger organisms like flies, mites and beetles also aid in the breakdown of organic matter. The time it takes for fresh organic waste to be completely decomposed is dependent on multiple factors: microorganisms present, water content, oxygen content, and surrounding air temperature, for example.
STORC operates two different compost locations, one on the STORC grounds, and one other location on the Sacramento State campus. STORC student interns and volunteers pick up discarded food waste from campus eateries daily and deliver it to both of the composting facilities. Due to the amount of waste diverted from landfills to these compost piles, hundreds of pounds of compost is ready or in the process of becoming ready for various uses. Compost is used to feed and shelter worms in vermiculture bins at STORC, which are then used to feed fish inside of the aquaponics systems. The compost is also used as a main ingredient in STORC-made compost tea, which in turn is used to fertilize plants grown in the aquaponics systems. All compost tea made at Sacramento State is made from steeping STORC compost with molasses and other ingredients to produce an ultra-concentrated liquid fertilizer.
Aquaculture While many commercial aquaponics systems use fish that can easily be sold for food, the species used at STORC were not chosen with that consideration in mind. CSUS Biology professor Dr. Ron Coleman was a consultant for STORC as they were choosing the specific types of fish species they would be using in the aquaponics systems. Carp, catfish, bass, bluegill, and Sacramento perch are all common fish species that are found in the numerous aquaponic tanks at STORC. All of these species were chosen for their native status in the Western United States and due to the ease at which they grow in captivity.
In an effort to repopulate an endangered species, STORC contains a system inhabited by Sacramento perch. The perch existence as STORC is considered a restoration effort, due to their endangered status granted by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Commonly used in California aquaponics systems, once grown and released, the Perch ideally thrive and add new genetic diversity to existing populations in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta area. Studies have shown that when raised in captivity, Perch tend to prefer to eat mosquito larvae, which could potentially aid in the reduction of diseases spread by mosquitoes.
Catfish are very easy to keep in captivity, since they tend to thrive in warmer climates, like the Mediterranean climate of Sacramento.
Hydroponics