River Road Research, Inc.

Radu Popa

Kenneth H Nealson

Matthew Schechter

Biological waste such as food, organic or other biologically-derived waste is converted into shelf-stable and health-safe invertebrate feed. The method for converting includes pre-treating waste by fragmenting, reducing microbial contaminants, optionally amending with components that optimize fermentation, inoculating with microorganisms and mixing. Fermentation takes place in a bioreactor and produces fermentation leachate and solid fermentate. In the post-treatment steps, the solid fermentate is separated from the fermentation leachate. The solid fermentate is ground, dewatered and milled. The solid fermentate can be used as an invertebrate feed with or without further processing.

Method for converting food waste and other biological waste into invertebrate feed

Melanin or inorganic fertilizers are produced from fermentation leachates or from low-cost nutrient-rich solutions. The method for producing the melanin or inorganic fertilizer comprises repetitive trophic cycling in the controlled conditions of primary and secondary bioreactors. Nutrients are cycled between microorganisms such as bacteria, yeast and fungi and black soldier fly larvae,. Polysaccharides are partly converted into natural melanins or inorganic fertilizer, which are difficult to biodegrade and hence accumulate in the bioreactors. The method can employ, as a source of nutrients, leachates produced from food waste or from sugar-rich liquid waste of the food industry. These leachates can be used raw or can be augmented with low-cost sugar-rich solutions such as molasses, hydrolyzed cellulose or starch. The method is inexpensive and does not require the use of expensive chemically-defined culture media.

Growing community of inventors

Los Angeles, CA, United States of America

Radu Popa